[I warn now that this is going to appear somewhat prolix - you can skip to Part 3 if you just want to know about how the stones themselves work.]
Some months ago I came across a dirty old stone, in a rural salvage shop here in South Australia. When I bought it I thought it might be a kind of Arkansas stone, but after cleaning, and lapping and using, it was clearly a nice example of the legendary ‘Turkish Oilstone’, and I've since come across a second. I’ll be looking at these two stones in this thread as well as exploring some of the mystery and confusion regarding their origin. The first is on the left, the second on the right:
---
Our main problem is that historical sources have the Turkish stone in a number of different places, whilst also conceding that the exact origin is unknown. Some texts tell us particularly useless things like ‘They are called Turkey stones because they come from Turkey’, while others are more detailed: The area that we might loosely call the 'Levant' is mentioned - modern day Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Israel/Palestine. A French text has them transported to and traded from Jaffa (Tel Aviv).
Although Crete is not mentioned historically as far as I can see, it should be noted that until 1898 it was part of the former Ottoman Empire. And one of the first descriptions of sharpening stones in western writing comes from Pliny the Elder, who cites the Cretan stone as the non plus ultra of what was available at the time.
But the most commonly cited origin for the Turkish stone is modern day Turkey - particularly around Iconium (Konya). This idea appears to date from an 1836 collection of stones belonging to a Mr. Richard Knight. In which he describes the Turkey Oil-Stone thus: ‘As a whet-stone, it surpasses every other known substance, and possesses, in an eminent degree, the property of abrading the hardest steel… Little more is known of its natural history than that it is found in the interior of Asia Minor, and brought down to Smyrna for sale.’
This is something that has been occupying the minds of people for at least two hundred years then. Given that there appear to be no first-hand historical reports to confirm or deny any of this, we perhaps need to approach the question from a different perspective. And an aspect that hasn’t been explored much before is that of nomenclature.
---
For many centuries effectively all British trade with the Ottoman Empire was conducted, by royal charter, through members of the Levant Company, or ‘Turkey Company’. They themselves were known as ‘Turkey Merchants’, and many of their goods attracted the adjectival description ‘Turkish’ or ‘Turkey’. Furthermore in the 19th century whetstones were among their most important imports, we can see in this Levant Company duty document that by 1818 they were already being brought into Britain by the thousand, ‘in casks, the 100’.
This ties in quite well with the accounts that have the Turkish stone brought in oil-filled barrels or casks to Smyrna (Izmir), which was one of the most important trade hubs for the Levant Company. Indeed they had a consul there, as well as at Constantinople (Istanbul) and Aleppo. The latter is not a port city, but is close to another important hub at Alexandretta (Iskendurun).
Let’s now have a look at a map detailing the main historical trade routes, so we can get our head around all this geography.
The coastline of the Levant is peppered with port cities, and at the very least we might reasonably expect that if origin of the Turkish stone was to be found in Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Israel/Palestine then they would have been traded from Iskendurun. Little point in taking heavy cargo on the long and dangerous road to Smyrna, when plenty of boats are waiting for you far closer. As the crow flies Konya is almost equidistant between Smyrna and Iskendurun, though the map above has goods passing through Constantinople, on a far longer journey. From Crete however a stone would almost certainly have been taken to Smyrna - which is easily the nearest major trading port.
---
As you can probably tell I have spent some time looking into all this. If I still lived in the UK I’m relatively certain that the answer could be found in the records of the Levant Company in the British National Archives at Kew, which is quite close to where I’m from. But currently the historical evidence is inconclusive; we know there are historic chert deposits and quarries around Konya, but equally that the area around Elounda on Crete has been a source of highly-prized whetstones for thousands of years.
Whetstones that are still available to purchase today...
[Parts 2 & 3 to follow, and will have more pictures in them I promise. Quite a lot more.]
Some months ago I came across a dirty old stone, in a rural salvage shop here in South Australia. When I bought it I thought it might be a kind of Arkansas stone, but after cleaning, and lapping and using, it was clearly a nice example of the legendary ‘Turkish Oilstone’, and I've since come across a second. I’ll be looking at these two stones in this thread as well as exploring some of the mystery and confusion regarding their origin. The first is on the left, the second on the right:
---
Our main problem is that historical sources have the Turkish stone in a number of different places, whilst also conceding that the exact origin is unknown. Some texts tell us particularly useless things like ‘They are called Turkey stones because they come from Turkey’, while others are more detailed: The area that we might loosely call the 'Levant' is mentioned - modern day Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Israel/Palestine. A French text has them transported to and traded from Jaffa (Tel Aviv).
Although Crete is not mentioned historically as far as I can see, it should be noted that until 1898 it was part of the former Ottoman Empire. And one of the first descriptions of sharpening stones in western writing comes from Pliny the Elder, who cites the Cretan stone as the non plus ultra of what was available at the time.
But the most commonly cited origin for the Turkish stone is modern day Turkey - particularly around Iconium (Konya). This idea appears to date from an 1836 collection of stones belonging to a Mr. Richard Knight. In which he describes the Turkey Oil-Stone thus: ‘As a whet-stone, it surpasses every other known substance, and possesses, in an eminent degree, the property of abrading the hardest steel… Little more is known of its natural history than that it is found in the interior of Asia Minor, and brought down to Smyrna for sale.’
This is something that has been occupying the minds of people for at least two hundred years then. Given that there appear to be no first-hand historical reports to confirm or deny any of this, we perhaps need to approach the question from a different perspective. And an aspect that hasn’t been explored much before is that of nomenclature.
---
For many centuries effectively all British trade with the Ottoman Empire was conducted, by royal charter, through members of the Levant Company, or ‘Turkey Company’. They themselves were known as ‘Turkey Merchants’, and many of their goods attracted the adjectival description ‘Turkish’ or ‘Turkey’. Furthermore in the 19th century whetstones were among their most important imports, we can see in this Levant Company duty document that by 1818 they were already being brought into Britain by the thousand, ‘in casks, the 100’.
This ties in quite well with the accounts that have the Turkish stone brought in oil-filled barrels or casks to Smyrna (Izmir), which was one of the most important trade hubs for the Levant Company. Indeed they had a consul there, as well as at Constantinople (Istanbul) and Aleppo. The latter is not a port city, but is close to another important hub at Alexandretta (Iskendurun).
Let’s now have a look at a map detailing the main historical trade routes, so we can get our head around all this geography.
The coastline of the Levant is peppered with port cities, and at the very least we might reasonably expect that if origin of the Turkish stone was to be found in Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Israel/Palestine then they would have been traded from Iskendurun. Little point in taking heavy cargo on the long and dangerous road to Smyrna, when plenty of boats are waiting for you far closer. As the crow flies Konya is almost equidistant between Smyrna and Iskendurun, though the map above has goods passing through Constantinople, on a far longer journey. From Crete however a stone would almost certainly have been taken to Smyrna - which is easily the nearest major trading port.
---
As you can probably tell I have spent some time looking into all this. If I still lived in the UK I’m relatively certain that the answer could be found in the records of the Levant Company in the British National Archives at Kew, which is quite close to where I’m from. But currently the historical evidence is inconclusive; we know there are historic chert deposits and quarries around Konya, but equally that the area around Elounda on Crete has been a source of highly-prized whetstones for thousands of years.
Whetstones that are still available to purchase today...
[Parts 2 & 3 to follow, and will have more pictures in them I promise. Quite a lot more.]
Last edited:
. And I hadn't even considered that cotis would be so much denser, though obviously it makes sense.
