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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
The present concordance aims to provide a convenient tool for those interested in the manuscript(s) formerly kept in the two Chaldean collections of Diyarbakır and Mardin, both catalogued at the beginning of the 20th century by Addai Scher. This concordance references the digital copies produced by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in collaboration with the Centre Numérique des Manuscrits Orientaux and includes the class-marks assigned by W. Macomber. It also indicates the availability of microfilm copies held in the archive of A. Vööbus and in the Peshitta Institute.
Over
the course of the first decade of the 20th century, Addai Scher (1867–1915) – a
Chaldean Archbishop of Siirt in Northern Mesopotamia – prepared and published the
catalogue descriptions of five Chaldean collections of Syriac and Christian Arabic
manuscripts located in Siirt, Alqosh, Mosul, Diyarbakır and Mardin. The work on the concordance grew from my
participation in cataloguing of the joint collection of Diyarbakır and
Mardin. Adam C. Bremer-McCollum – at that time the lead cataloguer of
Eastern Christian manuscripts at the HMML – was also involved in this work,
and his contribution deserves to be acknowledged. Geert Jan Veldman kindly
provided me with information about the relevant microfilm copies held at the
Peshitta Institute in Amsterdam. I am grateful to C. Stewart OSB, J.F.
Coakley and A.C. Bremer-McCollum for helpful comments on the final draft of
this article. The
project would not have been completed without a Nicky B. Carpenter
fellowship, enabling me to study the microfilm archive of A. Vööbus as well
as the archive of W. Macomber, both currently held at the Hill Museum &
Manuscript Library. I am greatly indebted to the entire staff of the HMML,
and especially its director, Columba Stewart OSB. They are to be deeply
thanked for their kind assistance in the course of this research. A. Scher, The renowned French Syriacist J.-B. Chabot once
remarked that it was he who prompted Addai Scher to prepare the catalogues
of the Chaldean collections: ‘Un prélat chaldéen fort instruit, massacré par
les Turcs en 1915, Mgr Scher avait entrepris, à mon instigation, de décrire
sommairement les collections réunies à Séert, sa ville épiscopale, à Mardin,
à Mossoul, à Diarbekir’ (J.B. Chabot, For Addai Scher’s contribution to the study of
Syriac Christianity, see two recent studies published in a volume
commemorating the martyred Archbishop: M. Perkams, “Einleitung: Eine
christliche Wissenstradition zwischen Griechen, Persern und Muslimen. Zur
Bedeutung, Überlieferung und Erforschung des ostsyrischen Schrifttums ein
Jahrhundert nach Addai Scher,” in According to J.B. Chabot, it was possible to
procure copies of the manuscripts from those collections: ‘De ces ouvrages,
il est relativement facile d’obtenier aujourd’hui des copies soignées’ (J.B.
Chabot, Catalogue des manuscrits syriaques et arabes conservés
dans la bibliothèque épiscopale de Séert (Kurdistan) (Mosul:
Imprimerie des Pères Dominicains, 1905); A. Scher, “Notice sur les
manuscrits syriaques conservés dans la bibliothèque du couvent des Chaldéens
de Notre Dame-des-Semences,” Journal Asiatique 10e série, vol. 7 (1906), 479–512 & 8 (1906),
55–82; A. Scher, “Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques conservés dans la
bibliothèque du Patriarcat chaldéen de Mossoul,” Revue des
bibliothèques 17 (1907), 227–260; A. Scher, “Notice sur les
manuscrits syriaques et arabes conservés à l’archevêché chaldéen de
Diarbékir,” Journal asiatique 10e série, vol. 10 (1907), 331–362, 385–431, A.
Scher, “Notice des mss. syriaques et arabes conservés dans la bibliothèque
de l’évêché chaldéen de Mardin,” Revue des
bibliothèques 18 (1908), 64–95.Littérature
syriaque (Paris, 1934), 12).Griechische Philosophie
und Wissenschaft bei den Ostsyrern: Zum Gedenken an Mār Addai Scher
(1867–1915), Transmissions 3, ed. M. Perkams and A.M. Schilling
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 1–12; A. Becker, “Mār Addai Scher and the
Recovery of East Syrian Scholastic Culture,” in ibid,
13–28.Littérature syriaque (Paris, 1934),
13).
Unfortunately, turmoil brought about by the Armenian and Assyrian genocides and the First World War, caused the destruction of numerous churches, monasteries, and, unavoidably, manuscripts in the region. Thus the collection of Siirt, one of the collections that Scher had catalogued, was almost completely destroyed.
The destiny of four other collections remained unknown until the
late 1920s when a Belgian Dominican Jacques-Marie Vosté (1883–1949) visited the
region and explored local collections of manuscripts. Jacques Vosté was glad to
report that, despite some relocations, the Chaldean collections of Mosul, Alqosh,
Mardin and Diyarbakır, known from the catalogues of Scher, had survived. J-M. Vosté, “Notes sur les manuscrits
syriaques de Diarbékir et autres localités d’Orient,” Le
Muséon 50 (1937), 345–351. Vosté also prepared a new catalogue of
the collection of the Chaldean monastery known as “Notre-Dame-des-Semences”
(J.-M. Vosté, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque syro-chaldéenne
du Couvent de Notre-Dame des Semences près d’Alqosh (Iraq),” Angelicum 5 (1928), 3–36, 161–194, 325–358, 481–498,
and republished separately in 1929).
Somewhat later on, in the mid-1960s, these collections were visited
and studied by William F. Macomber (1921–2000), who carefully documented the results
in the form of checklists and copious notes (all remain unpublished). At
approximately the same time, Arthur Vööbus (1909–1988), a prominent Syriacist, was
able to gain access to the collections mentioned above and photographed many Syriac
manuscripts. Vööbus continued his research expeditions in the 60s and 70s and often
revisited the same collection. The research trips of
Vööbus have not been documented and there is even not even agreement as to
their number (A. Annus, “The Syriologist Arthur Vööbus – a Perspective from
Tartu,” in See, for example, J. C. J. Sanders, “Le
Manuscrit arabe 128 de Diarbékir retrouvé,” Needless to say, the
collections under consideration here were visited and studied by Middle
Eastern scholars, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century. In this
respect, one should mention Patriarch Afrām Barṣūm (1887–1957), who
travelled extensively in the Middle East and visited a large number of
libraries (his Cultural Crossroads in the Middle East,
Studia Orientalia Tartuensia. Series Nova, vol. VIII, ed. V. Sazonov, H.
Mölder and P. Espak (University of Tartu Press, 2019), 87–99, here 92,
mentions 34 and K. Kasemaa, “Arthur Vööbus - ein Forscher des christlichen
Orients,” in Studien zu Ritual und Sozialgeschichte im
Alten Orient / Studies on Ritual and Society in the Ancient Near East:
Tartuer Symposien 1998-2004, ed. R.T. Kämmerer (Berlin: De
Gruyter), 147–151, here 149 states that there were more than 40
expeditions). The only elaborate description of Vööbus’ expeditions can be
found in K. Raudsepp, Arthur Võõbus, 1909–1988
(Toronto: OMA Press, 1990), 60–88. For Vööbus’ personal (but unfortunately
rather general) accounts, see A. Vööbus, “Pouring over Manuscripts”, Lutheran Theological Seminary Record 66 / Fall Issue
(1961), 17–21, idem, “In Pursuit of Syriac
Manuscripts,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 37
(1978), 187–193 and idem, “On the Pathways of the
Syrian Orient in Pursuit of Manuscript Treasures,” in
The Professor Arthur Vööbus collection of Syriac Manuscripts on film and the institute of Syriac manuscript studies (Chicago:
The Institute of Syriac Manuscript Studies, 1982), 2–20. No exact count
exists also for the total number of manuscripts that were photographed by
Vööbus, but thanks to the ‘Syriac Manuscript Project’ (headed by S. Creason)
it was estimated that Vööbus’s collection includes photographs of 695
manuscripts made in 23 different locations in the Middle East (see Oriental Institute 2006–2007 Annual report
(University of Chicago, 2007), 107. Finally, it is noteworthy that Vööbus
planned to produce catalogues for some of the collections, but none was ever
published.Le Muséon
88 (1975), 31–57.Scattered Pearls contains multiple
references to the Chaldean collections). A prolific Jesuit scholar Louis
Cheikho (1859–1927) likewise visited the Chaldean collections of Diyarbakir
and Mardin in 1895. Thus, in his travelogue “From Beirut to India”, he
mentions paying a visit to the library of the Chaldean church in Mardin,
where he saw a Gospel manuscript ‘not older than the 10th century’;
illuminated liturgical manuscripts; and a manuscript copy of the Syriac
version of Kalīla wa-Dimna (L. Šayḫū, “Min Bayrūt ilā
al-Hind,” Al-Mašriq (April 1912), 298–306, here 305 =
L. Šayḫū, Riḥlāt ʿilmiyya baḥt̲an ʿan al-maḫṭūṭāt
(Beirut, 2010), 123). The last of these was without doubt the unique
16th-century manuscript copy containing the older Syriac version of Kalīla wa-Dimna, which was translated from the Middle
Persian. The manuscript seems to have disappeared after the text of Kalīla wa-Dimna was copied several times at the end
of the 19th century (for a description of the manuscript’s discovery by A.
Socin in 1870, see M. Müller, Essais sur la mythologie
comparée. Les traditions et les coutumes / trans. by G. Perrot
(Paris: Librairie académique, 1873), 469–479; for an updated
state-of-the-art with regard to the Syriac versions of Kalīla wa-Dimna, see B. Gruendler et al., “An Interim Report on
the Editorial and Analytical Work of the AnonymClassic Project,” Medieval Worlds 11 (2020), 241–279, here
245–247).
In relation to the subject of the present concordance – the Chaldean
collections of Diyarbakır and Mardin – we know that they did not remain intact
across the 20th century. Manuscripts were relocated, some were lost, and many new
ones were added. The most significant development took place in 1965, when the
manuscripts of the Diyarbakır collection were brought to the church of Mar Hormizd
in Mardin and merged with manuscripts already present there into one collection.
Macomber posits that this was done by the Chaldean priest of Mardin, Revd. Süleyman
Şen, who arranged for the manuscripts’ transportation and storage at his own
expense. W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of Syriac
Manuscripts in the Middle East,” in XVII. Deutscher
Orientalistentag vom 21. bis 27. Juli 1968 in Würzburg: Vorträge,
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement 1.2, ed.
W. Voigt (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1969), 473–482, here 481 n. 60. Revd.
Süleyman Şen served as a priest in Diyarbakır from 1949 until 1968 (cf. M.
Şimşek,
Keldaniler ve Diyarbakır (Istanbul:
Kent Işıklar, 2018), 49).
Although the whereabouts of the joint collection were unknown for
some time, it was re-discovered in 2010, and somewhat later, in 2012, the entire
collection – consisting of 588 manuscripts – was successfully digitized by the Hill
Museum & Manuscript Library in collaboration with the Centre Numérique des
Manuscrits Orientaux (headed by the Dominican priest – and now Chaldean Archbishop
of Mosul – Revd. Michael Najeeb). HMML Project Code:
CCM. C.
Stewart, “HMML and Syriac Manuscripts,” in Manuscripta
syriaca. Des sources de première main, Cahiers d’études syriaques
4, ed. F. Briquel-Chatonnet and M. Debié (Paris: Geuthner, 2015), 49–64. For
a vivid personal account by Revd. Michael Najeeb about the re-discovery of
the collection in Mardin, see his M. Najeeb, Sauver les
livres et les hommes (Paris: Grasset, 2017), 112–114, cf. C.
Stewart, “The Chaldean Manuscripts in Mardin and Diyarbakir: Lost and
Found,” Illuminations (Newsletter of the Hill Museum
& Manuscript Library) (Spring 2015), 4–7. For a brief presentation of
the partnership between the HMML and the CNMO, see C. Stewart, “Our Work in
Iraq: Building an Extraordinary Partnership,” Illuminations (Newsletter of the Hill Museum & Manuscript
Library) (Fall 2021), 3–6.
Besides digitized copies of the manuscripts from those collections
(or at least those that have remained there) All freely accessible
online at www.vhmml.org. For a brief presentation, see A.C. McCollum,
“The Nachlass of William Macomber (1921–2008) Donated
to HMML,” Illuminations (Newsletter of the Hill
Museum & Manuscript Library) (Spring 2012), 12 and also
McCollum’s blog post https://hmmlorientalia.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/the-nachlass-of-william-macomber-1921-2008/
(last accessed 6 December, 2022).
The main objective of the present concordance is to correlate the catalogue descriptions by Scher of the three Chaldean collections – in Diyarbakır, Mardin and Mosul – with the digital copies made by the CNMO in collaboration with the HMML. In addition to this, given that many manuscripts are no longer physically present, their current locations – where known – and identifications are provided. Similarly, the presence of the microfilm copies in both the Vööbus’ microfilm archive as well as in the collection of the Peshitta Institute is indicated. Finally, and for the sake of the historical record, I provide the class-marks assigned to the manuscripts by Macomber and record references to the individual manuscripts in studies by several researchers who seem to have firsthand knowledge of the holdings of the collections under consideration. The listing of such references is by no means intended to be complete, but should serve as a preliminary mining of information relevant to the history of the collections.
The current installment contains a concordance of the joint Diyarbakır-Mardin collection, whereas that for the collection of the Chaldean Patriarchate will follow in due course.
A proper history of all these Chaldean collections is yet to be
written. Nonetheless a few facts relating to the whereabouts of the manuscripts from
the collections of Diyarbakır and Mardin in the 20th century deserve to be mentioned
here. See also G. Kessel, “Manuscript collection of
the Syrian Orthodox Church Meryemana in Diyarbakır: A Preliminary Survey,”
in Manuscripta syriaca. Des sources de première main,
Cahiers d’études syriaques 4, ed. F. Briquel-Chatonnet and M. Debié (Paris:
Geuthner, 2015), 79–123, here 84–94 (several details are corrected in the
present survey). For the earlier history of the Mardin collection, see some
observations in D. Wilmshurst, The Ecclesiastical
Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913, CSCO 582 / Subs.
104 (Louvain: Peeters, 2000), 76–80 and for Diyarbakır, ibidem, 54–60. Regrettably, a recent study of the Chaldean
community in Diyarbakır by Mehmet Şimşek (M. Şimşek, Keldaniler ve Diyarbakır (Istanbul: Kent Işıklar, 2018)) does not
deal with the history of the Chaldean collection of
manuscripts.
In particular, Vosté reported in 1937 that a group of 23 manuscripts
had been transferred from Diyarbakır to the Chaldean Patriarchate in Mosul. J.-M. Vosté, “Notes sur les manuscrits
syriaques de Diarbékir et autres localités d’Orient,” Le
Muséon 50 (1937), 345–351, here 348–350. The total number of
manuscripts indicated by Vosté is 22, because he counts Diyarbakır/Scher 109
and Diyarbakır/Scher 100 as one manuscript (the two volumes of the Lexicon that they contain must have been bound
together by that time).
Regrettably, little is known about circumstances of the transfer.
Vosté only mentions that it was carried out ‘par les soins de Sa Béatitude Mgr
Emmanuel Thomas, Patriarche des Chaldéens’ [1852–1947],
J.-M. Vosté, “Notes sur les manuscrits syriaques de Diarbékir et autres
localités d’Orient,” I. ʿĪskō, “Al-maktaba
al-kaldāniyya al-baṭrīarkiyya bi-l-Mawṣil,” Al-Naǧm 11:4 (1950): 217–221,
here 219–220.Le Muséon 50 (1937), 345–351,
here 348.
However, approximately at the same time when the manuscripts were
transferred to Mosul a group of some 30 manuscripts from the Diyarbakır collection
had entered the private collection of ʿAbd an-Nūr Aṣlān (1851–1933), the Syrian
Orthodox Metropolitan of Diyarbakır. A list of the private
collection of ʿAbd an-Nūr Aṣlān was prepared for Afrām Barṣūm in 1934 (A.
Barṣūm, Srīṭōṯō d-Ōmīd w-Merdō / Maḫṭūṭāt Āmid
wa-Mārdīn, vol. 3 (Damascus, 2008), 93–108) and features (according
to my identification) three (or, possibly, five) manuscripts originating
from the Chaldean collection in Diyarbakır in the main part of the
description and another 25 listed very briefly in a footnote on account of
to their overtly Chaldean content. Because of the brevity of the
description, a precise identification is not always possible. Whereas one
can be relatively sure on the identification of 13 manuscripts
(Diyarbakır/Scher 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 35, 91, 92, 109, 110, 135, 137, 151),
the identification of other six is less certain (Diyarbakır/Scher 28, 52,
78, 99, 103, 127). On the manuscript collection of ʿAbd an-Nūr Aṣlān, see G.
Kessel, “Manuscript collection of the Syrian Orthodox Church Meryemana in
Diyarbakır: A Preliminary Survey,” in Manuscripta syriaca.
Des sources de première main, Cahiers d’études syriaques 4, ed. F.
Briquel-Chatonnet and M. Debié (Paris: Geuthner, 2015), 79–123, here 85–92,
on the person himself cf. now also J.J. van Ginkel, “Mor Dionysios ʿAbd
an-Nur Aslan: Church Leader during a Genocide,” in Let
Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and
Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, ed. D. Gaunt, N. Atto
and Soner O. Barthoma (New York: Berghahn, 2017), 100–112.
Hence, several manuscripts from the Chaldean collection in Diyarbakır are reported to have been in two different places at the same time. This situation is indeed puzzling and remains to be explained.
As mentioned earlier, in 1965 the manuscripts from the Diyarbakır
collection were transferred to Mardin. Prior to the transfer, the collection was
apparently kept in the church of Mar Petyun. Macomber reports about his visit in
1965 that ‘[a]t Diarbekir, Dr. W. Baars of the Peshitta Institute in Leiden had
preceded me and had, with the assistance of the late pastor, Rev. Süleyman Şen,
separated the manuscripts from the printed books’. W.F. Macomber, A.
Vööbus, “In Pursuit of Syriac Manuscripts,”
A. Vööbus, HMML Project Code:
CHAL. C. Stewart, “HMML
and Syriac Manuscripts,” in Checklist of the Manuscripts Kept at the Chaldean
Cathedral in Mardin [unpublished manuscript deposited at Hill
Museum & Manuscript Library], 1.Journal of Near Eastern Studies 37
(1978), 187–193, here 189 n. 15.i.e. Diyarbakır 15] out of a heap of manuscripts in
the attic of this huge cathedral-like church [sc. of Mar
Petyun]. Since the glass of the small windows had been broken, the manuscripts were
exposed not only to weather conditions but also to desecration by birds’.Studies in the
History of the Gospel Text in Syriac II: New Contributions to the
Sources Elucidating the History of the Traditions, CSCO 496 / Subs.
79 (Louvain: Peeters, 1987), 145 n. 105.Manuscripta syriaca. Des
sources de première main, Cahiers d’études syriaques 4, ed. F.
Briquel-Chatonnet and M. Debié (Paris: Geuthner, 2015), 49–64, here
54.
The role of W. Macomber in the study of the collections is worth a
special note because he not only examined the holdings of the joint
Diyarbakır-Mardin collection but also assigned new class-marks to the entire
collection following a subject-based decimal system Macomber mentions
this on several occasions, for example, in his W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of
Syriac Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 481; W.F. Macomber, “Newly
Discovered Fragments of the Gospel Commentaries of Theodore of
Mopsuestia,” Cf. W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of Syriac
Manuscripts in the Middle East,” in
Macomber referred to the manuscripts from the joint collection according to
the new class-marks in some of his publications, see, for example, his W.F.
Macomber, “A List of the Known Manuscripts of the Chaldean Ḥuḏrā,” W.F. Macomber, Le Muséon 81 (1968), 441–447, here
444 n. 15; W.F. Macomber, “A List of the Known Manuscripts of the Chaldean
Ḥuḏrā,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 36 (1970),
120–134, here 125 n. 4.XVII. Deutscher
Orientalistentag vom 21. bis 27. Juli 1968 in Würzburg: Vorträge,
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement 1.2, ed.
W. Voigt (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1969), 473–482, here 481.Orientalia Christiana Periodica 36 (1970),
120–134.Checklist of the Manuscripts Kept at the Chaldean
Cathedral in Mardin [unpublished manuscript deposited at Hill
Museum & Manuscript Library], 2. I am going to provide more information
about this subject-based decimal system in the next installment of the
concordance.
Among the manuscripts initially present in Diyarbakır and Mardin’s collections, some – besides those transferred to the Chaldean Patriarchate – found their way into other libraries. These are:
Vatican library: Diyarbakır/Scher 9, Mardin/Scher 36, 39, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 91, 93
Peshitta Institute: Diyarbakır/Scher 1 and Mardin/Scher 2, 16
Chester Beatty Library: Mardin/Scher 8 and 9
National Library of France: Mardin/Scher 46
Library of the Bollandist Society: Mardin/Scher 83
Eighteen manuscripts from the Mardin collection were
donated to the Vatican library by Israel Audo (1859–1941), the last Chaldean bishop
of Mardin. W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of Syriac
Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 481 n. 52.
Although the circumstances of these relocations have not been
investigated, it is likely that the above-mentioned libraries preserve within their
archives historical records that will shed light on the acquisition of manuscripts
from the Chaldean collections of Diyarbakır and Mardin. The
archive of François Nau, kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France,
contains the letters from Addai Scher that elucidate the circumstances of
the acquisition by the BnF a group of manuscripts that belonged to the
collection of Siirt (cf. F. Pacha-Miran, I am grateful to Dr. Pietro D’Agostino for
providing me with copies of selected pages of the manuscript; on one of them
its acquisition history is documented.Le décor de la
Bible syriaque de Paris (BnF syr. 341) et son role dans l’histoire du
livre chrétien, Cahiers d’études syriaques 7 (Paris: Geuthner,
2020), 15–20).
In dealing with the relocation of manuscripts from the Diyarbakır and Mardin collections, one has to bear in mind the possibility of transfer of the manuscripts between the two collections. This possibility is suggested by the nearly identical descriptions of the manuscripts Diyarbakır/Scher 99 and Mardin/Scher 80. Whereas Mardin/Scher 80 has been identified within the holdings of the joint collection, the Diyarbakır manuscript has not.
On the occasion of the 17th German Orientalistentag held in Würzburg
in 1968, William Macomber provided a report on his examination of collections of
Syriac manuscripts in the Middle East. In particular, he reported concerning the
joint Diyarbakır-Mardin collection that he could not identify 30 Diyarbakır
manuscripts W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of Syriac
Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 480 n. 47. W.F. Macomber, “New
Finds of Syriac Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 480 n. 48. W.F. Macomber, “New Finds
of Syriac Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 481 n. 57. Out of six manuscripts that were tentatively identified by Macomber (W.F. Macomber, “New Finds of Syriac Manuscripts in the Middle East,” 481 n. 56), only for one (Mardin/Scher 88) is the identification recorded in Macomber’s notes. Given that one (Mardin/Scher 84) was relocated, I treat the other four as unidentified (Mardin/Scher 72, 83, 90 and 96).
At the same time, many manuscripts have disappeared during the
second half of the 20th century. In sum, out of 159 Syriac and Arabic manuscripts in
the Diyarbakır collection, 67 manuscripts are currently missing (additionally, from
two manuscripts – Diyarbakır/Scher 14 and 23 – only the binding boards have
survived), and out of 104 Syriac and Arabic manuscripts in the Mardin collection,
the same can be said of 19. Notwithstanding the re-appearance of a few important
manuscripts that Macomber reported as missing – for instance, a copy of the First Part of Isaac of Nineveh, Diyarbakır/Scher 46) and a
commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by Abū l-Faraǧ ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ṭayyib
(Diyarbakır/Scher 130) – it is regretful to state that most of the old and rare
manuscripts – for example, a copy of Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron dated to 822 (Diyarbakır/Scher 23), an 11th/12th-century copy
of the works of Severus of Antioch (Diyarbakır/Scher 30), to name just two – have
been lost. It is worth noting, however, that there remains a chance to trace at
least some of the missing manuscripts, whether in the Middle Eastern or Western
collections.
Several explanatory remarks for the table:
The first column provides the sequential numbers of the manuscripts in Scher’s catalogues of Diyarbakır and Mardin. The second column lists the corresponding HMML project numbers (project code CCM) or their actual shelf marks in case of relocated manuscripts. Given the brevity (and, occasionally, inaccuracy) of some manuscript descriptions in Scher’s catalogue, precise identification is not always possible. The third column presents the class-marks assigned to the manuscripts by Macomber and which can be found today in Macomber’s checklist (kept at the HMML) and, as a rule, on the first page of each manuscript. Macomber marked a manuscript as missing in case he could not find it and as unidentified in case he could not identify it with certainty. The fourth column signals the availability of a microfilm copy in the collection of the Peshitta Institute (Amsterdam) and/or in the microfilm archive of A. Vööbus (kept today at the HMML). It is important to bear in mind that Vööbus usually (at least in case of the collection under consideration) photographed only selected folios of a manuscript; the precise identification of the folios that Vööbus photographed has not been undertaken. Some microfilms belonging to the Peshitta Institute were digitized by the HMML and are now available online in HMML’s online reading room (project code PI). Not all the microfilms (even relating to the manuscripts of Diyarbakır and Mardin) were digitized, and therefore I am grateful to Geert Jan Veldman (Peshitta Institute, Amsterdam), who kindly provided me with information about additional microfilms. The footnotes provide the information of different nature: the sigla employed in the Peshitta Institute’s editions of the Old Testament; references to the Vosté’s list of manuscripts that were transferred from Diyarbakır to the Chaldean Patriarchate; references to the catalogue of the private collection of ʿAbd an-Nūr Aṣlān; references to the studies of relevance for the history of the manuscripts, especially by Afrām Barṣūm and Fiey, although one cannot be sure that they had firsthand knowledge of each manuscript mentioned in their publications.
Barsoum 2003 : Barsoum, Ignatius Aphram I. The Scattered Pearls. A History of Syriac Literature and
Sciences / trans. by Matti Moosa. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003.
Barṣūm 2008 : Barṣūm, A. Srīṭōṯō
d-Ōmīd w-Merdō / Maḫṭūṭāt Āmid wa-Mārdīn, vol. 3. Damascus, 2008.
Fiey 1959 : Fiey, J.M. Mossoul
chrétien. Essai sur l’histoire, l’archéologie et l’état actuel des monuments
chrétiens de la ville de Mossoul, Recherches publiées sous la direction de
l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth 12. Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique,
1959.
Fiey 1965 : Fiey, J.M. Assyrie
Chrétienne. Contribution à l’étude de l’histoire et de la géographie
ecclésiastiques et monastiques du nord de l’Iraq, vols. 1–2, Recherches
publiées sous la direction de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth; Série
III: Orient Chrétien, vol. 22, 34. Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1965.
Fiey 1977 : Fiey, J.M. Nisibe,
métropole syriaque orientale et ses suffragants des origins à nos jours,
CSCO 388 / Subs. 54. Louvain: Peeters, 1977.
Fourth Supplement 1968 : “Peshiṭta Institute
Communications VII. Fourth Supplement to the List of Old Testament Peshiṭta
Manuscripts.” Vetus Testamentum 18/1 (1968): 128–143.
Leroy 1964 : Leroy, J. Les manuscrits
syriaques à peintures, conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Europe et d’Orient.
Contribution à l’étude de l’iconographie des églises de langue syriaque,
Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 77. Paris: Geuthner, 1964.
Macomber 1968 : Macomber, W.F. “Newly Discovered
Fragments of the Gospel Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia.” Le Muséon 81 (1968): 441–447.
Takahashi 2005 : Takahashi, H. Barhebraeus. A Bio-Bibliography. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press,
2005.
Vööbus 1987 : Vööbus, A. Studies in
the History of the Gospel Text in Syriac II: New Contributions to the Sources
Elucidating the History of the Traditions, CSCO 496 / Subs. 79. Louvain:
Peeters, 1987.
Vosté 1937 : Vosté, J.M. “Notes sur les manuscrits
syriaques de Diarbékir et autres localités d’Orient.” Le
Muséon 50 (1937): 345–351.
Vosté 1941 : Vosté, J.M. “L’ère de l’Ascension de
Notre-Seigneur dans les manuscrits nestoriens.” Orientalia
Christiana Periodica 7 (1941): 233–250.