The Tax Farm for the Salt-Works and Port Customs of Ottoman Cyprus (1570-95)

Abstract

Focusing on the revenue and expenditure records of the treasury of Ottoman Cyprus during the last decades of the sixteenth century, this article examines the tax farm of the salt-works and port customs created by the Ottomans during the first quarter century of their rule on the island. In doing so it seeks to underline the importance of the Cyprus budget records (ruznamce) for understanding the financial system that the Ottomans introduced to the island and to determine the revenue derived from these tax farms.