In this work, seals in Ottoman Empire are studied as a diplomatic element. Seal, used in official documents from the earliest times of the empire, was used as a meta in forgery of documents by making imitations or producing counterfeits. Within this framework, profession of Hakkak, which is the art of engraving seals, and application books were studied in relation to the subject. Along with the historical process of the profession of Hakkak, its problems in 19th century were studied in terms of

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... fake seal usage. Besides, application books kept in Ottoman Empire were analysed with regard to their contents. In addition, examples of forgery in documents and seals especially taken from incidents in 19th century were studied. In our study, which includes penal santions that the Ottoman Empire practised against forgery, two different cases of fake seal involving two prominent statesmen of Tanzimat Reform Era, Mehmet Emin Ali and Mehmet Ali Pasa were examined.