Slipper pine

Abstract The decorative seals of Turkish pipes are useful for identifying workshops and their products, tracing cultural influences, and with their help, relative chronological conclusions can be drawn. The stamp now analyzed was known in a significant area in the 17th century and was published in sufficient numbers. I found a total of 72 pipes—including unpublished museum specimens—that wear the ‘slipper pine’ stamp. Of these, the largest number of examples are those with oval bowls. A fairly uniform group can be distinguished within this type, on which the slipper pine stamp was always applied to the pipes according to the same layout rules. This can be considered the basic type of the slipper pine carrier and distributor. Its distribution extends from Podolia to Anatolia. Several examples of the keel type also bear this stamp, but there is no uniformity. The other pipes bearing the seal can be classified into a wide variety of types, the majority of which are known from the Hódoltság, the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary occupied by the Ottoman Empire. These further developed the shape of the stamp, as well as its use and location on the surface of the pipe, although they also follow the layout rules of the basic oval-bowled type in a certain way. Based on several sources, the seal originated before the 1660s, around 1650 at the latest, and remained in use until the 1700s. The original place of production of the basic type was probably Adrianople/Edirne and its surroundings, while the other workshops operated later, based on workshop stamps.