Fig trader Aram Hamparzum and his role in the global fig market

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, as world trade grew, figs grown along the Great Menderes Valley, Anatolia, became recognized globally for their taste. Aram Hamparzum, an Ottoman citizen of Armenian origin, contributed enormously to the figs’ prominence, by marketing them as ‘Smyrna Figs’ with the ‘Camel Brand’. Hamparzum, who also received the support of British trading houses, became known as the ‘fig king’ of the world markets, deeply impressing Western Anatolia’s producers and tradespeople with his methods, from processing to packaging. Using Turkish sources, this study focuses on Aram Hamparzum and his role in the fig market to analyze the influence of Ottoman non-Muslim subjects who directed the country’s foreign trade and the process of their withdrawal from the market and subsequent replacement by Turkish-Muslim traders. This change pushed the Izmir port to the background, and ‘Smyrna Figs’ was slowly forgotten as preference grew for cheaper figs from other countries.