Turkish Dates
Nick Bridgwater
going wrong !
The June 1911 issue of Turkey consists of a number of earlier stamps
overprinted to commemorate the Sultan's visit to Macedonia.
The overprint looks like this - http://cjoint.com/data/dnsOPmrRrb.htm
All the (few) examples I've got look like this (with the minor difference
of the placename at the bottom).
In the middle are four characters that are a date, which I translate to
1329 in the Rumi calendar.
To convert to Gregorian dates one adds 584 years which comes out to 1913
not 1911 !
To get the correct Gregorian date, the Rumi date should be 1327, which
would require the last character to look like a "V" not a "9".
Can anyone please explain what I'm doing wrong - or alternatively why a
Turkish issue of 1911 is dated for 1913 ??
Regards,
Nick
Blair (TC)
> I've found an inedible Turkish date - perhaps someone can explain where I'm
> going wrong !
>
> The June 1911 issue of Turkey consists of a number of earlier stamps
> overprinted to commemorate the Sultan's visit to Macedonia.
>
> All the (few) examples I've got look like this (with the minor difference
> of the placename at the bottom).
>
> In the middle are four characters that are a date, which I translate to
> 1329 in the Rumi calendar.
>
> To convert to Gregorian dates one adds 584 years which comes out to 1913
> not 1911 !
>
> To get the correct Gregorian date, the Rumi date should be 1327, which
> would require the last character to look like a "V" not a "9".
>
> Can anyone please explain what I'm doing wrong - or alternatively why a
> Turkish issue of 1911 is dated for 1913 ??
>
> Regards,
> Nick
Hey Nick:
I make the Islamic / Gregorian dates as follows:
01 Safar 1326 = 05 Mar 1908
01 Safar 1327 = 22 Feb 1909
01 Safar 1328 = 12 Feb 1910
01 Safar 1329 = 01 Feb 1911
28 Jumada al-Ahira 1329 = 26 June 1911 <=== Stamps issued
01 Safar 1330 = 21 Jan 1912
01 Safar 1331 = 10 Jan 1913
01 Safar 1332 = 30 Dec 1913
01 Safar 1333 = 19 Dec 1914
01 Safar 1334 = 09 Dec 1915
01 Safar 1335 = 27 Nov 1916
01 Safar 1336 = 16 Nov 1917
01 Safar 1337 = 06 Nov 1918
01 Safar 1338 = 26 Oct 1919
01 Safar 1339 = 15 Oct 1920
Please note the two year changes in 1913.
Best Regards
Blair
Nick Bridgwater
news:8a2a5176-41e6-4f42...@d2g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
Blair,
Thanks for your input but ... there are more overprints with dates a
little later -
Ones with "1331" in a crescent issued in 1915, and later "1332" in 1916.
If I get a match of 1329 to 1911, then 1331 & 1332 don't fit 1915 & 1916.
Thoughts ?
Regards,
Nick
Blair (TC)
well it's possible the stamp catalogue dates are wrong in some cases..
also a 1331 (or similar) opt could have been applied any time after
1912-13.
Blair
Blair (TC)
addendum. could the stamps be optd then stored until needed?
Blair (TC)
The Turkish financial calendar (also known as the
Mali- or Rumi-calendar) was in use in the Ottoman empire
during its later period, mostly along with the lunar Hijra-
calendar. It has rather peculiar rules for aligning the
numbering of (longer) solar with (shorter) lunar years by
regularly dropping entire years (Sivish-years) apart from
other peculiarities and errors were therefore inevitable.
Dual date
In the Ottoman Empire, the lunar-based Hijri calendar remained
in use for religious matters alongside the Rumi calendar.
In order to prevent confusion between the dates, both calendars
were used on most documents.
Conversion between the Rumi and Gregorian calendars
To convert dates between the two calendars, the following
periods have to be taken into consideration:
* Start-of-year correction
Until the end of 1332 AH, Rumi dates in the last 12 or 13
days of December, January, and February belong to the
following Gregorian year.
Until the end of February 1917 AD, Gregorian dates in
January, February, and the first 12 or 13 days of
March belong to the previous Rumi year.
* Before March 13, 1840 AD
No conversion is possible, since Rumi calendar was not in use.
* Between March 13, 1840 AD (March 1, 1256 AH) and March 13, 1900
AD
(February 29, 1315 AH)
Add 12 days and 584 years to find Gregorian date.
1900 was not a Gregorian leap year. The day after Feb. 28, 1900
AD
(Feb. 16, 1315 AH) was Mar. 1, 1900 AD (Feb. 17, 1315 AH.)
* Between March 14, 1900 AD (March 1, 1316 AH) and February 28,
1917 AD
(February 15, 1332 AH)
Add 13 days and 584 years to find Gregorian date.
* Starting on March 1, 1917 AD (March 1, 1333 AH)
Add 584 years only.
From Rumi calendar into Gregorian calendar
31 March Incident occurred on March 31, 1325 AH
Adding 13 days to date and 584 to year: April 13, 1909 AD
From Gregorian calendar into Rumi calendar
Proclamation of the republic in Turkey on October 29, 1923 AD
Subtract 584 from year. Date remains same after January 1, 1918
due to use of the Gregorian calendar in the Rumi calendar:
October 29, 1339 AH
Here is a page where you can download a freeware (DOS) program
that converts Rumi :
http://web.archive.org/web/20080730020057/http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/computus.html
Nick Bridgwater
So if the date on the first overprint was a Hejira date (1329 -> 1911)
and the dates on the slightly later overprints were Rumi (1331 -> 1915,
1332 -> 1916) all is OK ?
This would be likely as the first Hejira (or Hijri ?) date was the date
that the Ottoman Sultan visited Macedonia so was "for official dating of
public events", whereas the other two dates were much more for
administrative purposes (the Ottoman Empire could not get more stamps
from Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. because it was on the opposite side in
WWI) so had to overprint lots of earlier stamps.
Looks like another useful snippet to throw in if/when I get round to
displaying these at my local stamp club !
Regards,
Nick