The Ottoman system of measurement was based on the ell.
And that’s the last simple concept you’re going to get to deal with. The Ottoman Turks never liked to make things easy when they could make them complicated, so they had not one, but three ells–the architect’s ell; the common ell, which was shorter than the architect’s ell; and the cloth ell, which was twice the common ell. They had three words for “ell”– arşın, zira’, and endâze–which could have mapped neatly to the three types of ell but which are, in fact, identical to each other. Or not. Or maybe? No, not right now. Okay–now. Now they’re identical. No, wait, you missed your window, now they’re all different.
To top it off, the length of the ell stretched over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, from 59.3 cm in 1503 to 67 cm in 1638. To know how long an ell is, you have to know what year you’re in.
I’ll make it as simple as I can from here on out.
Ditch This Stuff
Forget about the architect’s ell. It was used only by builders, and is useful if you’re trying to calculate the length of a common ell for a given period, but inapplicable otherwise.
Here Are the Basics
A common ell is is divided into 8 rub’/rubu or 16 girih.1
A cloth ell is exactly twice as wide as a common ell, and is divided into 16 rub’/rubu or 32 girih. (That is, rub’/rubu and girih were the same length regardless of the type of ell.)
People used common ells and cloth ells side by side. For example, in the 1624 market regulations, a type of overcoat called a kürdiyye was required to be one cloth ell and one girih long, with sleeves one common ell long.
When people used both common and cloth ells, they gave the different ells different names. In the kürdiyye example above, a cloth ell was called an endâze, and a common ell was called an arşın.2
The names people used vary by source. The 1624 market regulations call a common ell an arşın and a cloth ell an endâze. Late 15th century regulations call a common ell a zira’ and a cloth ell either an arşın or an endâze. The 1600 market regulations call a common ell a zira’ and don’t refer to cloth ells at all. You have to evaluate each source independently to determine which word refers to which type of ell.
The 16th-century ell was much shorter than the modern ell. Most scholars are unaware of this, and use the longer measurements standardized in the late 17th century.
So How Long Was an Ell?
Alpay Özdural has made a heroic effort to determine the true length of 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman measures, as reported in his article “Sinan’s Arşin: A Survey of Ottoman Architectural Metrology.” Using an extraordinary breadth of sources, these are the lengths he extrapolates, by date, for the common ell:
1503: 59.3 cm
First quarter of the 16th century: 60.1 cm, on average
Last quarter of the 16th century: 61.2 cm, on average
1614: common arşin or zira’, ****, which was 16 girih; bez arşin, double that, at 32 girih
1638: 67 cm
[section in progress]
The important detail isn’t that the Ottomans needed to get a grip on their units of measurement (although they did), it’s that the 16th-century arşın or zira’ was much shorter than what we now know as the standard arşın. Most sources say the arşın was 65.25 or 68 cm, four to eight centimeters longer than the actual 16th-century arşın.
The bez arşın, or “cloth ell,” was twice the width of the standard arşın. Using the measurements above, that gives us an average of 120.2 cm/47.3 in. during the first quarter of the 16th century and 122.4 cm/48.2 in. during the last quarter of the 16th century. The bez arşın was divided into 16 rub’ or 32 girih.
Sources often refer to the bez arşın as merely “arşın,” leaving you to guess when they mean which type of arşın.
An endâze is an ell, which is divided into eight rub’/urub or 16 girih/qirat’/qirak. According to Ingilzce-Osmanlica, this type of ell was 26 inches. According to Wikipedia, an endaze was 65 cm (25.59 in.). In the estate records, fabrics measured in endaze tend to cost more than fabrics measured in arşın, even when the same type of fabric is being measured.
Other Useful Measures
A top is a complete loom-length. The estates mention two ten-ell tops of bez (generic cotton cloth) and one eight-ell top of bez, which gives a general idea of how long a top could be. Other sources specify tops as long as 14 ells. Another source says a top is a bale.
A donluk is a quantity of fabric to be made into a garment–literally don, “garment” + -luk/-lık/-lik, “-ness.” The same construction is used to make more specific terms. For example, a kaftanlık is enough fabric to make a kaftan, and a gömleklik is enough fabric to make a gömlek.
Fabric was typically sold in a piece long enough to make one garment, so figuring out the length of a donluk for each type of garment would go a great way toward reconstructing some of the more obscure articles. Currently I have two data points: One, the standard length of a donluk for a kaftan was 11 ells. Two, Rabia Hatun bt. Mehmed owned a “Kırmızı donluk çuka zirâ‘ 4 rob? 6,” a garment-length of red woolen broadcloth that was 4 3/4 ells long and cost the princely sum of 1,330 akçe. For which garment? Unclear. I’m working to get my hands on the 1600 and 1640 Istanbul narh defteri, the official price lists that gave the accepted dimensions of both fabric lengths and finished garments.
A kıt‘a is a piece of fabric. Certain fabrics, like kirpas (canvas), were sold by the kıt‘a, so presumably a kıt‘a sometimes had a set length.
Mikdâr is “quantity.”
http://english.isam.org.tr/documents/_dosyalar/_pdfler/osmanli_arastirmalari_dergisi/osmanlı_sy1/1980_c1_FAROQHIS.pdf