- Siderocausa
:"
Siderocapsa is also a genus of iron bacteria in the family Siderocapsaceae."Siderocausa (Σιδηρόκαυσα), Sidirokafsia (Σιδηροκαυσία), Sidrekapsi, Sidre kapsi, Sidre qapsi, Sidrekaisi, Sidrekapisi, or Siderocapsa was a Byzantine
silver andgold mine and Ottoman mint east ofThessaloniki .It was located in northeastern
Chalcidice , in a group of twelve villages later called the Mademochoria (< Turkish "maaden" 'mine' + Greek χωριά 'villages'), including Stratoniki andStagira . [http://www.ierissos.gr/en/perioxh_stratonikh.htm]At some periods, the whole of the Chalcidice peninsula was called Siderocausa. [Vryonis, p. 13]
Ottoman mint
The Sidrekapsi mine (Ottoman "ma‘den-i Sidrekapsi") was very large:
...by far the most productive of the Balkan mines during the firsthalf of the sixteenth century...employing as many as 6,000 miners... Its total output has been estimated at about six tons per year... [Pamuk, p 37]
The mint was active from about 1530 to the 18th or perhaps the 19th century, and produced silver
akçe and goldsultani . [http://www.turknumismatik.org.tr/turkce/yayinlar/bultenler/bulten032/tekst_makale02_tr.html] For the sultani, it was one of the three main mints, along withCairo andIstanbul .References
* O. Davies, "Ancient Mines in Southern Macedonia", "The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland" 62 (Jan.-Jun., 1932), p. 140 doi|10.2307/2843882
* Sevket Pamuk, "A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire", Cambridge, 2000, ISBN 0521441978.
* Speros Vryonis, Jr., "The Question of the Byzantine Mines", "Speculum" 37:1:13-14 (Jan., 1962) doi|10.2307/2850595
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