, formerly also başbakanlik arşivi , the Archives of the Prime Minister’s office, the name now given to the central state archives of Turkey and of the Ottoman Empire. The formation of the Ottoman archives begins with the rise of the Ottoman state, but the present collection, though containing a number of individual documents and registers from earlier times, dates substantially from after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The archives became really full from about the middle of the 16th century, and continue to the end of the Empire.

The organisation of the Ottoman reco…