Our Notes & References

Lovely pocket book for Amsterdam-based Armenian merchants containing practical information on systems of measurement around the world, with added material on Africa.

Very rare, with only two copies traceable outside Armenia, none in the Americas (Oxford and Pisa, although the latter seems to have only 29 pp.). A third copy traced at auctions, the only one in recent decades.

The Armenians of New Julfa, in Isfahan, were involved in every aspect of silk production and were among the Shah’s most privileged and wealthy subjects. Silk was the most important commodity of Safavid Iran, around which its entire political economy was based, and Amsterdam was one of its most important markets. The Armenians immigrated there in large numbers and by 1660 were in control of over 70 ‘Asiatic’ trading houses in the city (cf. Denzel).

As in the other cities of the Armenian diaspora, they brought the printing press with them: the kinsmen Ghukas (b. 1650s) and Tovmas Vanandetsi (1617-1708) published a total of twenty books at their eponymous printing house, as well as the first world map in Armenian, the ‘Amatarats Ashkharatsuits‘ (1695) (cf. Simonyan).

This little book was specifically designed to cater to the needs of the Armenian merchant community in Amsterdam. Written in the Persian-influenced dialect of New Julfa, it provides a conspectus of useful weights and measures, particularly conversions between different measures of raw silk, arithmetic and accounting exercises, and “interesting details about the national characteristics of the Europeans with whom they would be doing business” (Hovannisian, p. 321).

Vanandetsi has also included accounts of the economies of East and West Africa, which are extremely rare before the 19th century — these parts of the world were not essential to the silk trade, and have been added, according to the colophon, simply ‘for the benefit of our inquisitive brother merchants’.

This example is profusely annotated with what appears to be a kind of Armenian numerology — the anonymous scribe has noted down the traditional values of each Armenian letter and used them to derive the same two numbers repeatedly — 1268 and 1269. The abbreviation ՍԲ for ‘surb’, ‘saint’, and the word ԱՄԵՆ/ԱՄԻՆ (‘amen’) are also repeated throughout, accompanied by the Greek cross, indicating that the annotations have a religious or divinatory purpose, similar to Hebrew or Greek practice of gematria. This pocket-sized book was likely carried along with an Armenian merchant on his voyages to serve both a practical and an apotropaic function, similar to a hmayil scroll.

Provenance

A contemporary Armenian reader (annotations); unidentified black armorial stamps to title and some pages; Bratislava red ink stamp to title.

Bibliography

Denzel, Markus A., ed. 2024. Das Armenische Kaufmannshandbuch des Lukas Vanandec’i: Armenier im östlichen Europa 7. Sandstein Kultur; Hovannisian, Richard G. 1997. The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. New York: St. Martin’s Press; Simonyan, Arpine. 2019. ‘The Stylistic and Pictorial Peculiarities of ‘the Last Supper’and ‘Washing of the Feet’ Engravings in the Vanadetsi Publications’. Revue Des Etudes Sud-Est Europeennes 57 (1–4): 261–74.