Turkish Postmarks From Crete

Nice Turkish map of Girit:Makes you want to collect everything!

Outside my collecting interests but an absorbing field nonetheless.

Thanks for sharing Nigel

Thanks Geoff,

Yes,it is!

I first got interested in Crete when I was at school reading about the discoveries at Knossos and Agia Triadha and the stories of the ancient Minoans.

About the same time I cam across two stamps which intrigued me on and off for years. One was from the British administration in Crete and the other was from one of the first set of handstamped eagle stamps of the Russian administration.

I've collected Crete stamps and postmarks for many years but at heart I'm still a world-wide collector.

One thing I've found fascinating is all the connections that the island and its stamps give to its history and the history and stamps of the countries around it.

I had a very enjoyable holiday in Crete some years ago and saw quite a bit of the island.

Nice map perf12!

I believe the Ottoman name Girit (Crete) is the long word running below the island.

Sometimes small symbols were added to identify short vowels but I'm intrigued that the calligrapher could add so many marks to such a short word!

I'd be very interested if anyone who knows Ottoman Turkish or Arabic could explain what's going here.

Nigel - excellent. I find that an interest in a place gives a fillip to collecting stamps from there. Recently read Leigh Fermor's Abducting a General, about the wartime operation also described in Ill Met by Monnlight. Also have Psychoundakis's The Cretan Runner to read!

Here's a Turkish 20 paras postcard sent from Chania in Crete to Wilhelmshaven in Germany:

This has a Turkish bilingual HANIA CDS postmark dated 9th March 1897 (Old Style)

and also a WILHELMSHAVEN arrival CDS postmark dated 20th March 1897 (New Style).

On the back is a long message in German starting with "Kreta Suda d. 7 Mars 97".

Souda is only a few miles from the centre of Chania and was already an important port by 1897.

This card appears to have been sent to the gunnery training ship SMS Mars at Wilhelmshaven:


I can't make out the message but I'll post a scan on a separate thread to see if anyone can read it.

The date is interesting for me as the German cruiser SMS Kaiserin Augusta was anchored in Souda Bay from late February 1897 and I have three postcards sent from sailors on the ship later the same year.

The name of the map is in the bottom left corner

"Girit Vilayeti" and the ratio size is 1/1500000 of a kilometer (not sure if that is for 1 centimeter on the map)

The island was divided into five "sanjagi" (districts) named after their chief towns. Sanjaks were introduces as part of an overhaul of local government in the Empirein 1876, so the map is from somewhere between 1876 and 1898.

The 5 districts, from west to east, were :

Khaniya
Isfakiya (on south coast)
Rismu
Qandiya (the main city, but on map the sanjak has a different name, can not make it out though.)
Lashid

The long inscription under the island is "Bahr-I Safid" (Mediterranean Sea in Ottoman Turkish) while above the island is "Adalar Denizi" (Aegean Sea in Ottoman Turkish).

I believe it is time for the island of Crete to name Nigel an honorary citizen?!

How do you do this? We could start a petition??!!

Hi DJCMHOH,

Thanks very much for your help in reading perf12's lovely map.

I'm very glad I bumped this topic.

I believe I see the name of Khandiye above the town.

I'll try and work through your other examples for practice and see if I can make anything of the mystery Sanjak name.

Haha, nice thought Michael!

Actually looking again with fresh eyes the "mystery" sanjak is indeed "Qandiya" there was a bit of a worn spot at the start of it making it hard to read until I expanded the size.

Going through my Ottoman stamps, and found a post mark from Chania. Unfortunately the stamp is not in the best condition.
It looks like it was postmarked in 1892, but I can't quite make out the month.

Does anyone know where the postmark from the second stamp is from?



Michael.

Michael the second stamp wasused in Yanice-yi Vardar, which today is Giannitsa in Northern Greece

Thank you very much. It made me go back an look at my Balkan Wars maps, and remember how much the borders changed in Europe after that.

Michael

Hi Michael,

The month on your Chania postmark is July (JUIL).