GrocerIST
Grocers of Istanbul: Tracing Food Consumption
The main objective of GrocerIST is to reveal and analyse the food consumption patterns of inhabitants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Istanbul through the use of grocers' (bakkal) inheritance inventories. By making comparisons across the centuries and different socio-economic conditions of the city, this project intends to discuss the food consumption of Ottomans within the frameworks of the internal and external political and socio-economic circumstances of the empire.
Documents
Explore detailed records of inheritance inventories from 18th and 19th century Istanbul grocers.
Browse DocumentsGroceries
Access a detailed catalog of groceries listed in historical inheritance inventories.
Browse GroceriesLocations
Explore geographical locations tied to grocers, as recorded in the documents.
Browse Locations© Background image for the "Grocers" menu item from Salt Research Archives, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, cropped.
This website was established to present the results of GrocerIST, a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and conducted by the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH). It showcases data on Istanbul’s grocers as documented in inheritance inventories from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
For the eighteenth century, a total of 392 kadi sicills were scanned, of which 77 include grocers' inheritance inventories with 88 entries in total from the years 1701 to 1795, covering three judicial districts (kadiships) of Istanbul: Galata (37 inventories), Üsküdar (21 inventories), and Eyüp (19 inventories).
For the nineteenth century, 124 kadi sicills from the Üsküdar kadiship were scanned, yielding 29 grocers’ inheritance inventories from the period between 1803 and 1851. The website will soon incorporate an additional 150 Eyüp grocers’ inheritance inventories, covering the years 1798 to 1906. By the first quarter of 2025, the data from the Galata grocers will also be added to the database.
The data can be explored in detail through five dedicated tabs: “Documents,” “Grocers,” “Groceries,” “Grocery Categories,” and “Locations.” Additionally, the “Dashboard” tab offers detailed graphs and visualizations of the data, facilitating deeper analysis. The site also includes a list of “paraphernalia” documented in the grocers’ inheritance inventories and will soon feature a separate database of pricing information.
For the university project website click here: https://grocerist.univie.ac.at/