Watermills (Âsiyâb) According to Archival Documents

Watermills were generally built on the routes where there were flowing water or nearby them. According to the archival sources, particularly the Tahrir Registers, known as cedid (new) and köhne (old), which were renewed for every 30 years especially in XIVth and XVIth centuries, the watermills in the various regions of the Ottoman State were registered. During the inventory, individiual mill numbers for each region, by whom they were managed and also how they were crafted by water, wind or horse-power, were descripted. Their instructions were emphasized in detail in the law books.