Death and Life in the Ottoman Palace

Douglas Scott Brookes teaches Ottoman Turkish language in the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also taught courses at Berkeley in Ottoman history and culture. His research interests include the culture of the Ottoman Imperial Family in general and the harem system in particular. He has led numerous educational tours through Turkey, including for the Berkeley Alumni Association. He is the author of On the Sultan’s Service (Indiana University, 2019), Harem Ghosts (Markus Wiener, 2016), The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher (University of Texas, 2008), and The Ottoman Gentleman of the Sixteenth Century (Harvard NELC, 2003).

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsNotes on Language and Transliteration Map 1. Instanbul around 1860Map 2. The Hamidiye Tomb Complex Map 3. Burial Plots in the MausoleumMap 4. Burial Plots in the Side Graveyard Map 5. Burial Plots in the Forecourt Graveyard Garlands and Roses for Eunuch İbrahim İbiş AğaIntroduction: Mansion of the HeavensThe Makings of a Royal Graveyard: Abdülhamid I and the Iconography of Sultanic TombsA Tomb in Town: The Design and Operation of a Royal MausoleumPresenting the Imperial Family: The Birth, Death, and Survival of Royal ChildrenThe Men and Boys in the Garden: Courtiers, Eunuchs, and the Palace MilieuThe Women in the Garden: The Female World of the Imperial HaremConclusion: Benevolence in StoneAppendix A. Burials in the MausoleumAppendix B. Burials of Men and Boys in the Garden GraveyardAppendix C. Burials of Women in the Garden GraveyardAppendix D. The Epitaphs in the Garden GraveyardGlossary BibliographyIndex

Douglas Brookes’s meticulous study　zooms in on a small graveyard in Istanbul which has been the resting place for several members of the Ottoman dynasty as well as other officials of the imperial court who expired from the 1780s to 1860s. The book can rightly be regarded as a micro-history that takes this cemetery as its starting point. Readers not only learn the building’s history, its architectural and physical features but in a more detailed fashion about the people buried here. The author narrates these people’s lives and informs us of the circumstances in which they died, their illnesses, their pedigree. This approach brings about an unusual and gratifying peek into some of the dynamics of the Ottoman court in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.