Jewelled Book Covers (Murassa) on Ottoman Manuscr？？pt

Book covers or volumes are the covers that bring handfwritten manuscripts in pages together for purposes of preservation. The cover involves the “lower cover”, “upper cover”, the “spine” that connects both covers, the “bookmarker” connected to the lower cover and that covers the front part of the book and “sertab” that connects the bookmark to the lower cover and makes the bookmark move easily. Bookbinders started using jewels and other valuable stone on their book covers as a result of the boosting status of the economy and increasing interest and demand in 16th century in Ottoman Empire. Early samples of book covers with jewels on them come from 9th and 10th century Roman Civilization. Roman era jeweled book covers involve human figure descriptions while Ottoman book covers involve plant-derived figures. Jeweled book covers are the shared works of bookbinders and jewelers and we generally find them on Koran covers. Pearl, emerald, ruby and turquoise were commonly used in the decorations. The jeweled book covers lost their popularity as of 17th century in parallel with the declining economic status of the country