The Mediterranean Economies as “Garden Economies”

Year 2019, , 90 - 92, 01.10.2019

Elias Kolovos

https://doi.org/10.32325/iaad.2019.6

Abstract

“Bahçe Ekonomileri” Olarak Akdeniz Ekonomileri

Abstract

My case study for this research was the Greek island of Andros, one of the Cyclades islands, under the Ottomans. I have investigated how the economy in the case of an Aegean island during the seventeenth century had to move beyond self-sufficiency and isolation and secure the commercialisation of particular surpluses, to survive. Through an analysis of the data extracted from the Ottoman land and property survey (tahrir) of the island of Andros in 1670, I assumed that its economy was able to reproduce itself with only relative self-sufficiency. Especially the production of cereals was under the level of subsistence in the case of this island. This was not a unique case in the world of the Aegean and the Mediterranean islands. In bad years, the islanders had to import cereals from outside. Thus, the islanders were forced to produce commercial commodities to obtain revenues and buy cereals from outside, at least during bad harvest years.

Keywords

Andros adası, incir, bahçe ekonomisi

References

• Elias Kolovos, ὃπου ἦν κῆπος: Η μεσογειακή νησιωτική οικονομία της Άνδρου σύμφωνα με το οθωμανικό κτηματολόγιο του 1670 [“There was a garden...” The Economy of the Mediterranean Island of Andros according to the Ottoman Land and Property Survey of 1670] (Heraklion: Crete University Press, 2017).