In The Light Of Cost Journals Topkap？ Palace The III. Ahmed (Enderun) Library

Libraries are information sources for societies. In past times, these buildings - where both written and visual resources are collectively stored - were sheltered and ostentatious . The III. Ahmed (Enderun) Library is one of these buildings. From the Ottoman Archives of the Prime Ministry (BOA), the three journals which document the construction cost of the III. Ahmed Library are the main source of this paper. These cost journals have been studied as a master’s thesis in the Social Sciences Institute, Department of Art History of Istanbul University. From these journals that were transcribed from Ottoman Turkish in to modern Turkish, we obtained multiple pieces of useful information such as; the building period of the III. Ahmed Library, the work groups involved in the construction, the wages paid to the workers’ groups, the materials used, the places where the materials were brought and the total cost of the library. The aim of this article was to describe in detail the 32-week construction processes of the III. Ahmed Library - one of the most important structures of the 18th century and the first independent palace library