The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as ''
asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
. It was also used in other states including the
Anatolian Beyliks
Anatolian beyliks (, Ottoman Turkish: ''Tavâif-i mülûk'', ''Beylik''; ) were Turkish principalities (or petty kingdoms) in Anatolia governed by ''beys'', the first of which were founded at the end of the 11th century. A second and more exte ...
, the
Aq Qoyunlu
The Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans (, ; ) was a culturally Persianate society, Persianate,Kaushik Roy, ''Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400–1750'', (Bloomsbury, 2014), 38; "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two trib ...
,
and the
Crimean Khanate
The Crimean Khanate, self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatars, Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of th ...
. The basic meaning of the word is "silver" or "silver money", deriving from the Turkish word () and the diminutive suffix . Three s were equal to one . One-hundred and twenty 's equalled one . Later after 1687 the ' became the main unit of account, replacing the . In 1843, the silver ' was joined by the gold
lira
Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current Turkish lira, currency of Turkey and also the local name of the Lebanese pound, currencies of Lebanon and of Syrian pound, Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, ...
in a
bimetallic system. Its weight fluctuated; one source estimates it between 1.15 and 1.18 grams.
The name ' originally referred to a silver coin but later the meaning changed and it became a synonym for money.
The mint in
Novo Brdo, a fortified mining town in the
Serbian Despotate rich with gold and silver mines, began to strike ' in 1441 when it was captured by the Ottoman forces for the first time.
The
Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul is said to have cost 59 million ''akçe'' when it was constructed in the 1550s. This amount is said to have equalled 700,000
ducat
The ducat ( ) coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide inter ...
s in gold (probably
Venetian).
Debasement
Silver content and index in an Ottoman .
Value compared to the
gold ducat of Venice by years:
See also
*
Akşa
*
Manghir
References
External links
Ottoman coinsSeptember 1, 2013 - A huge treasure of 47,000 silver Akçe discovered in Goleşti, Romania
Coins of the Ottoman Empire
Silver coins
Medieval currencies
Turkish words and phrases
{{Ottoman-stub