Transgenders and Eunuch History in Turkey

[JesusA (imported)]

I will point out that the description of the types of eunuchs is not from Turkish sources but is a word for word quote from Sir Richard Francis Burton's "Terminal Essay'" to his 15 volume Arabian Nights.

I suspect that Hakan’s source is actually quoting (without proper citation) Norman M. Penzer’s 1965 book The Harem (London: Spring Books). The subtitle of Penzer’s book is an account of the institution as it existed in the Palace of the Turkish Sultans with a history of the Grand Seraglio from its foundation to modern times.

In chapter 6 (The Black Eunuchs), Penzer gives a somewhat inaccurate history of castration and eunuchs – though all with proper footnotes. He gives the exact quotation that Hakan’s source has. Penzer’s book has been published (in English, at least) in Istanbul in 1998 and would, thus, be available to a Turkish author. There may be a Turkish translation of it as well, though I did not conduct a thorough search for one.

I have tried reading some of the Turkish language sources on eunuchs, though neither GoogleTranslate nor Babblefish does a very good job translating Turkish to English. (Babblefish seems slightly better.) Two of the sources (of hundreds of thousands that a Google search reveals) that I tried to read in translation give the identical quotation – without citing its source.

I expect that somewhere, in the avalanche of Turkish language sources, that I could easily be buried under, there are some excellent sources on castration and eunuchs in Ottoman Turkey. There are certainly some excellent Arabic language sources on castration and eunuchs in the Moslem world (mostly NOT including the Turkish realm) from about the second century of Islam and continuing for centuries. Little has been translated into English, other than brief quotations by scholars such as David Ayalon or Shaun Marmon.

Before the Turkish-speaking peoples began to be converted to Islam, they were prime targets for slave-raiding, and there are accounts of Turkish boys from Central Asia being castrated in the city of Urgench before being shipped southwest into the Moslem heartland. (Urgench, in modern Turkmenistan and a major city on the Silk Road, was considered a primary castration center and source of eunuchs in the tenth and eleventh centuries.) If there are Turkish language sources that explore this, they should be quite interesting to read.

[Hakan1975 (imported)]

Here is my source about the Eunuchs at the Ottoman Palace at the section called Harem...

This is the long part, I have take/wrapped up the Eunuchs related part at the Harem

http://www.allaboutturkey.com/harem.htm

But i dont know where the writer had the real sources from too bad the citations are not mentioned...

best wishes

[transward (imported)]

I meant no implications about plagiarism. Burton's quotes on eunuchs seem to pop up all over the place, usually without attribution, whenever eunuchs are discussed. I just happen to be a bit of a Burton fanatic and have read read his Nights repeatedly. I recognized the quotes immediately. But a point that can be missed, is that he is describing castrations as it occurred during the time of the Arabian Nights, approximately between the years 600 to 1300, the middle of the dark ages. I suspect that surgical technique had improved greatly by the height of the Ottoman Empire, and I don't think they were still planting them in dunghills, and I don't think a 10% survival rate would be acceptable from a business standpoint. I remember reading in a history book discussions of the economics of castrating slaves. the increase in value from castrations, vs the losses involved in the operation. Can't find the reference immediately, but I remember he concluded that losses couldn't be much greater than 33% for the business to be profitable.

Transward