#syriac

**Material philology and Syriac excerpting practices: A computational-quantitative study of the digitized catalog of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library**

“_The results reveal that most manuscripts contain fewer than 20 excerpts, but a small number show much higher levels of excerpting, highlighting the immense intellectual and literary activities implicated in their production._”

Maeir N (2025) Material philology and Syriac excerpting practices: A computational-quantitative study of the digitized catalog of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library. PLOS ONE 20(3): e0320265. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320265.

#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Culture #Charts #Religion #Taxonomy #Christianity #Analysis #Philology #Syriac #Academia

Material philology and #Syriac excerpting practices: A computational-quantitative study of the digitized catalog of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library | PLOS One
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0320265

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon

#Syriac is referenced extensively in the chapter.

Prochaine séance du séminaire Manuscrits en Méditerranée ce jeudi 7 novembre, 14h, avec François Pacha Miran : Le Caire, Chypre, Jérusalem : création et circulation des manuscrits enluminés à l’Occident du monde syriaque
@campuscondorcet et accessible en ligne également
@IRHT_CNRS @bookhistodons
#manuscripts #syriac
https://manuscrits.hypotheses.org/6971

If anyone within the echo of this knows #Syriac, and wants to tell me what this MS is

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.sir.659

I'd love to be able to add at least a title to the listing

The Mongol conqueror #Genghis Khan's grandson Hulegu captured #Baghdad and ended the Abbasid #caliphate in the city in 1258.

I just read a text that asserts that around 25 years later, the Muslim vizier Shams al-Din Juvayni was involved in a plot to restore the caliphate, but he was put to death when Hulegu's grandson Arghun overthrew his uncle Teguder Ahmad. This is probably just slander, but it is surprising slander in a #Syriac text written in the late 1310s!

I'm (re)reading the History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sawma.

#IslamicHistory #MongolEmpire

A New (Double Palimpsest) Witness to the Old #Syriac Gospels (Vat. iber. 4, ff. 1 & 5) | New Testament Studies | Cambridge Core
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/new-double-palimpsest-witness-to-the-old-syriac-gospels-vat-iber-4-ff-1-5/0DBE3923810C204EB39118267EB41614
"Vat. iber. 4...contains on 2 of its folios the Syriac Gospel text as the lowest layer...within a double palimpsest. Comparison with known Syriac versions...shows that the text...is particularly akin to the Curetonianus (Syc). On palaeographic grounds, the original Gospel manuscript can be dated to the first half of the 6th century."

Dear specialists in #rtl (#syriac, #hebrew, #arabic) #html #xml (using #ceteicean) publishing. We have a problem with interpunction in rtl context. U+002E FULL STOP is in the wrong position on our website, only if and when the syriac text is interrupted by a xml/html tag. Any ideas? We've already checked https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-bidi-unicode-controls...

PaleoJudaica.com: Heal on Genesis 37 and 39 in the Early #Syriac Tradition
https://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2024/03/heal-on-genesis-37-and-39-in-early.html

@jedwardwalters might want to hashtag to find more helpers...

#Greek #Syriac #AncientHistory #History #manuscripts

New publication from your Philological Essayist! First longer translation from Syriac. Second part of the first sermon of the Book of Steps will be translated in a next publication on the same Substack channel! #Syriac #Philology #Christianity #Translation https://open.substack.com/pub/philologicaltryouts/p/step-by-step-through-the-book-of?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=kir9a

Syriac Mystics of Eastern Christianity - The Spiritual School of Saint Thomas (Gospel of Thomas) - Spiritual Awakening Radio Podcast Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Substack, etc...: https://santmatradhasoami.blogspot.com/2024/02/syriac-mystics-of-eastern-christianity.html

#SpiritualAwakeningRadio #syriac #Mystics #Gnosticism #Mysticism #ChristianMystics #ChristianMysticism #gospelofthomas #spiritualpodcast #Spiritualityodcast #spirituality #gnosticgospels #easternchristianity #naghammadilibrary #applepodcasts #spotify #spotifypodcasts

"Yesterday, as everyone was celebrating #Christmas and as we are approaching #NewYear's celebrations, just on these holidays of love, brotherhood and #peace, #Turkey attacked North and East #Syria," said Ilham Isa Matli from the #Syriac Women's Union.

#StopTurkishTerrorism

Assyrian women of the Syriac Quarter of Bethlehem, Palestine. Studio photograph taken in 1905.

The modern Assyrian community in Palestine was founded by religious pilgrims, but later became mostly comprised of refugees of the Assyrian genocide (also known as the Seyfo).

#my post
#palestine
#bethlehem
#بيت لحم
#دولة فلسطين
#assyrian
#assyria
#syriac
#vintage photography
#tw genocide
#oriental orthodoxy
#orthodox christianity
#middle east
#christianity

The price of a #Syriac #manuscript.

Interesting note on DCD 00042: according to the colophon, the manuscript was copied in 1821 at the Rabban Hormizd monastery outside of Alqosh. But then this other note was added at the end: "After 20 years, the head of the monastery gave this book to the people of Maʿaltya (ܡܥܠܬܝܐ) at the price of 13 qrúše (ܩܪܘܫܐ). This book now remains at our church of Mār Zayʿā, and no one has the authority [to remove it, etc...]."

From this note I got to learn about the village of Ma'alta (syriaca.org/place/1402), which is near Duhok, Iraq (mentioned several times in Wilmshurst).

And I also got to learn about the currency called qrúše or "Kuruş": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuruş

PaleoJudaica.com: ... New Trajectories in Syriac Studies (Brock Festschrift) (Brill)
https://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2023/10/new-trajectories-in-syriac-studies.html
No one mentions #Syriac, – a dialect of the Aramaic language Jesus spoke –, without referring to Sebastian P. Brock, the Oxford scholar and teacher who has written and taught about everything Syriac, even reorienting the field as The Third Lung of early Christianity (along with Greek and Latin).

The challenges of intellectual history in a manuscript age:

There is a section in the magnum opus of #Shbadnaya where he uses a LOT of #Greek words (in #Syriac script), (almost?) all derived from the 10th C dictionary of Bar Bahlul. But one word stumped me until this morning. The line reads:
ܗܲܟ̣ܣܹܐܓܗܲܪܬ̇ܝܼܛ ܐܲܢܘܿ ܕܲܟ̇ܣܘܿܣ ܐܸܣܛܘܿܒܵܢܵܝ
with glosses on each word (read #rtl ):
(1) ܐܬܬܥܝܪ
(2) ܐܘ
(3) ܡܫܒܚܐ
(4) ܘܡܝܬܪܐ

Reading the glosses, it is possible to get a sense of the intended meaning: "Arise, oh glorified and virtuous one!" (evidently an invocation of God).

The first word is everything except the last letter in the Greek imperative ἐξεγέρθητι.

The 2nd word looks a LOT like Greek ἄνω ("upward"), and is even glossed as that (ܠܥܠ) in Bar Bahlul's dictionary. I spent years (off-and-on) trying to figure out what Greek that sounds like that could be a vocative "oh!"

The 3rd word is also a puzzler: "daksos" is clearly related to Greek δόξα, but there is no Greek word δόξος.

1/x

One of the things I did not expect when I started editing this #medieval #Syriac text (#Shbadnaya 's magnum opus) was catching places where he must have misinterpreted his own source(s). He never cites Bar Bahlul, but he uses hundreds of glosses from Bar Bahlul's dictionary, so it's one of his most important sources.

Today again I tried to explain a word in Shbadnaya's work which is not in any dictionary (ܡܦ̈ܘܫܐ), and the closest I can find anywhere is in Bar Bahlul's definition of "luminary" (ܡܲܢܗܪܢܐ), where he gives as synonyms ܐܡܦܘܡܐ and ܐܡܦܘܫܐ (a near match, with an extra letter in front). Bar Bahlul then defines it as "which gives light to the house and is called al-rawzana" (ܕܡܲܢܗܪ ܠܒܝܬܐ ܘܡܬܩܪܐ الرَوزَنة). The last word is #Persian and means "window," but Shbadnaya seems to be referring to a lamp, so perhaps he didn't understand the Persian word in Bar Bahlul.

Even Bar Bahlul's form ܐܡܦܘܫܐ seems to be a mistake for ܐܡܦܘܦܐ (a different penultimate letter)!
#IntellectualHistory

A reminder that #translation is not just matching equivalents to words, but requires understanding the source culture.

I was confused by the phrase "the Son of God indicated (to) stubborn resistance" in the introduction to the text I am translating (where the same #Syriac might have "to" or not).

Then I remembered the #medieval authorial practice of self-deprecation, and the scribe is saying not that Christ revealed what stubbornness looks like, but rather that Christ revealed theology to the author, who characterizes himself as "stubborn resistance."

(The same realization cleared up several other confusions in the same section. It's a thing.)
#theology #Christianity #Shbadnaya

The #Syriac #manuscripts from India continue to provide fun (and humbling) opportunities to learn about Indian village names by trying to figure out Syriac transliterations of #Malayalam words. Today's was actually one of the easier ones, from the #colophon of MSOTS 00008: ܟܘܪܦܘܡܦܕܝ = Kurpumpady.

The ms was copied by the scribe ܩܫܝܫܐ ܐܝܣܚܩ ܙܥܘܪܐ ܒܦܕܝܐܛܝܠ (the priest Isḥaq "the small" of [the family] Padayattil), who goes on to identify himself further as a student of Mattai Konat. This scribe also has a seal with his name in both Syriac and Malayalam, which you can see in the images.