Observations on Bar cEbroyo's Marine Geography
Hidemi
Takahashi
Faculty of Policy Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
January 2003
Vol. 6, No. 1
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv6n1takahashi
Hidemi TAKAHASHI
Observations on Bar cEbroyo's Marine Geography
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol6/HV6N1Takahashi.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2003
vol 6
issue 1
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.
Syriac Studies
Bar `Ebroyo
Bar cEbroyo
Barhebraeus
Bar Hebraeus
De mundo
Hexaemeron
marine geography
cartography
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Descriptions of the world’s seas are
given by Bar cEbroyo (Barhebraeus) in several of his
works. An examination of these geographical accounts shows that
in composing them Bar cEbroyo has, as usual, used a
variety of sources both in Syriac (incl. the Syriac De
mundo; Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron or a work
dependent thereupon) and in Arabic (incl. works of
Bîrûnî; geographers of the
“Balkhî” school; Battânî’s
Zîj or a related work). A comparison of these
accounts also brings to light certain tendencies that Bar
cEbroyo developed with the progress of his literary
career.
Introduction
1. Mediterranean Sea
2. Outer Ocean
3. Caspian Sea/Maeotis
Conclusion
Introduction
[1] When one
peruses through works on “Islamic” cartography, it
does not take one long to realise that there is essentially one
Syriac world map that recurs in such works, namely the map that
is usually found in manuscripts accompanying the account of the
world’s seas in the Second Base (“on
Creation”) of Bar cEbroyo’s Mnorat
qudshê (Candelabrum sanctuarii, =
Cand
.).
At least four versions of the map are accessible in
print, namely those taken from mss. Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Sachau 81
(190 Sachau), 37v (before 1402/3 A.D.), Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale, syr. 210, 38r (1403/4
A.D.), Cambridge, University Library, Add. 2008 (15th
c.) and Paris, syr. 299, 204v (in a copy of the lexicon
of Bar cAlî, 1499 A.D.). Photographic or
schematic reproductions of these maps can be found, besides in
Bakoš’s edition of Cand., in: R. Gottheil,
“On a Syriac Geographical Chart”, PAOS 1888, p.
290ff. (from the Berolinensis, non vidi, reference taken from
Chabot, op. cit. infra); J.B. Chabot, “Notice sur une
mappemonde syrienne du XIIIe siècle, notes
complémentaires publiées d’après les
observations de MM. R. Gottheil et C.-A. Nallino”,
Bulletin de géographie historique et descriptive
1898.31-43, here p. 40-43 (Paris 210); K. Miller, Mappae
arabicae (Stuttgart, 1926-31), V.168-172 (Paris 210 and
299) and V, Beiheft, Tafel 81 (Berol. and Cantab.); Y. Kamal,
Monumenta cartographica Africae et Aegyptii (Cairo,
1926-52), 4/1.1096f. (Parisini and Berol.); G.R. Tibbets,
“Part One. Islamic Cartography, 6. Later Cartographical
Developments”, in J.B. Harvey & D. Woodward (ed.),
The History of Cartography, vol. 2, book 1
(Chicago-London, 1992), p. 137-155, here 148, cf. also 147 n. 1
(Berol.); see also E. Honigmann, Die sieben Klimata und die
πόλεις
επίσημοι
(Heidelberg, 1929), 167-178 (Paris 299).
Bar cEbroyo is, in other words,
if not the most important, at least the most conspicuous Syriac
author in the field of geography as he is in many other
fields.
[2] While
the versions of this map accessible in print include those
which are encumbered with later interpolations (mostly in
garshuni),
Of the four maps (see n. 1 above), those in the
Cantabriensis and Parisinus 299 have the later interpolations,
while those in the Berolinensis and Parisinus 210 represent the
simpler form of the map. Of the latter, Parisinus 210 is a
careless copy where, among other things, the place-names in the
3rd, 6th and 7th climes are written in the reverse order of
what should be the case. The Berolinensis is clearly the better
copy and the contours of the seas there too are likely to
represent fairly accurately the contours drawn by Bar
cEbroyo himself. – One further manuscript of
Cand., photographs of which I have been able to see
through the kindness of the owner and the good offices of Prof.
Hans Daiber (in the collection of Mr. Elias Assad, London, olim
al-Hasaka, dated 1405 A.D.), contains
the map in its simple form without the interpolations, but is
drawn in the form of a rectangle rather than the usual
semi-circle.
the place-names given in the simpler, and what
must be the original, version of the map can almost invariably
be found mentioned in the text of Cand., either in the
account of the seas or in the earlier discussion of the
“seven climes”.
In Cand. II.3.3.1 and II.3.2.1, ed. J.
Bakos, Le candélabre des sanctuaires de
Grégoire Aboulfaradj dit Barhebraeus, PO 22/4, 24/3
(Paris, 1930-3), 95-102 (seven climes), 150-166 (seas); Yuliyos
Yeshuc Çiçek, Mnorat qudshê
mettul shetessê
cidtonoyoto d-Yuhannon Bar
cEbroyo mafryono d-madnho
(Glane/Losser, 1997), col. 74-77, 79 (seven climes; columns 78
and 79 are printed in the wrong order), 108-117 (seas). –
The page and line references below, unless otherwise indicated,
are to Bakoš’s edition.
These passages of Cand.,
however, are not the only places where Bar cEbroyo
deals with geography. Similar descriptions of the world’s
seas can be found in a number of other works by him, namely the
Ktobo d-zalgê (Liber radiorum, =
Rad
.), the Sulloqo hawnonoyo (Ascensus
mentis, =
Asc
.), the Ethicon (=
Eth
.) and the
Hewat
hekmto (Butyrum sapientiae, =
But
.).
Rad
. I.3.1, Rays (zalgê)
5-7: facsimile edition, Ktobo d-zalgê w-shurroro
d-shetessê cidtonoyoto men syomê d-abun
qaddisho Mor Grigoriyos mafryono d-hu Bar cEbroyo.
Book of Zelge by Bar-Hebreaus. Mor Gregorius Abulfaraj the
Great Syrian Philosopher and Author of Several Christian Works
1226-1228 (Istanbul: Zafer Matbaası, 1997; copied by
Yeshuc b. Gabriel of Zaz in 1996 from an exemplar
copied by Malke b. Enosh of cAinwardo in 1887 A.Gr.,
i.e. from Bodl. Or. 467), here 35.16-38.16. –
Asc
. II.1.3-4: ed./tr. F. Nau, Le livre de
l’ascension de l’esprit sur la forme du ciel et de
la terre. Cours d’astronomie rédigé en 1279
par Grégoire Aboulfarag, dit Bar-Hebraeus, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1889), 133.12-136.17. –
Eth
.
IV.13.5: ed. P. Bedjan, Ktâbâ d-itiqon
d-cal myattrut dubbârê men
syâmê d-Bar cEbrâyâ.
Ethicon, seu Moralia Gregorii Barhebraei (Paris-Leipzig,
1898) 452.18-454.10; ed. Y.Y. Çiçek, Ktobo
d-itiqun d-cal myattrut dubborê men
syomê d-Mor Grigoriyos Yuhannon
Bar cEbroyo mafryono d-madnho [Glane/Losser, 1985], 236a 6-b 24). –
But
., Book of Minerals (= Min.) V.i.1-3: text and
translation in Takahashi, “Aristotelian Meteorology in
Syriac. Barhebraeus, Butyrum sapientiae, Books of
Minerals and Meteorology. Edition, Translation and
Commentary”, Diss. Frankfurt, 2002; manuscripts used:
Florence, Laur. or. 83 (olim Palat. 187; dated 1340 A.D.; = F);
London, BL Or. 4079 (1809 A.D.; = L); BL Or. 9380 (1892 A.D.; =
l); Vat. syr. 469 (1804 A.D.; = W); Princeton Theological
Seminary, Nestorian 25 (19th c.?; = P); Vat. syr. 613 (1887
A.D.; = V). – There is also a brief list of the seas in
the Awsar rozê (Horreum
mysteriorum, =
Horr
.) in the scholia on Gen.
1:9 (ed. M. Sprengling & W.C. Graham, Barhebraeus’
Scholia on the Old Testament, Part I: Genesis-II Samuel
[Chicago, 1931] 10.21-23), where Bar cEbroyo
mentions the Ocean with its gulfs (lit. “ears”,
ednoto), the “Sea Adrias and of Syria” (i.e.
the Mediterranean), the “Pontus”, and the seas of
“Reed (suf)”, “Elam” and
“India”.
[3] The
passages of Cand. and Rad. dealing with the seas
received some attention over a century ago in 1890 when Richard
Gottheil published them with an English translation.
R. Gottheil, “Contributions to the History of
Geography. II. Candelabrum Sanctorum and Liber Radiorium of
Gregorius Bar cEbhrāyā”, Hebraica 7
(1890) 39-55. – Gottheil also covered the parts of these
works dealing with the rivers and lakes. These parts will not
be considered in the present study.
The
relevant parts of Asc. and Cand. Base II received
further attention when François Nau and Ján
Bakoš published their editions of these works with
French translations, respectively, in 1899 and 1930-3. Not much
work, however, has been done since then on these geographical
accounts. This means that we have as yet no translations
published in a Western language of the relevant parts of
Eth. and But., while the translations of
Cand., Rad. and Asc. that do exist require
some correction. It has seemed not unworthwhile under these
circumstances to provide new translations of the accounts of
the seas in these five works and to provide some comments on
points of interest in them, mainly in connection with the
sources used by Bar cEbroyo.
[4] In what
follows the order of presentation will be that of the passages
in Cand., where we begin with a description of the
Mediterranean (ed. Bakos 154.3-155.5) and move on to the Outer
Ocean (155.5-158.1) and then to the Caspian Sea (158.3-12).
Translations of the passages of Cand. will be followed
by those of the related passages in the other four works and
then by comments on points of interest in these passages. The
order of the passages in the four works other than Cand.
is as follows:
Rad.: Outer Ocean (I.3.1.5; ed. Istanbul
35.16-37.6); Mediterranean (I.3.1.6; 37.6-38.6); Pontus and
Maeotis/Caspian (I.3.1.7; 38.6-16).
Asc.: Outer Ocean (II.1.3; ed. Nau
133.12-134.16); Seas inside the Habitable World (II.1.4;
134.17-136.17), including the Mediterranean (134.22-135.15);
Lakes (II.1.5; 136.18-137.18), including the Pontus and
Maeotis/Caspian (136.21-137.19).
Eth.: Outer Ocean (IV.13.5; ed. Bedjan
452.18-453.11); Mediterranean (453.11-18); Other Seas,
including the Pontus, “Hyrcanian” (Caspian) Sea,
Sea of Reed and Sea of Elam (453.18-454.2).
But.: Mediterranean (Book of Minerals,
Chap. V, Section 1, Theory 1-2); Pontus and Maeotis/Caspian
(V.1.2, end); Outer Ocean (V.1.3).
[5] Among
works that may have been available to Bar cEbroyo in
Syriac, reference will be made in the following paragraphs to
such works as the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Aristotelian
De mundo by Sergius of Rishcaino (ob. 536),
Jacob of Edessa’s (c. 640-708) Hexaemeron (=
Hex.) and the anonymous Causa causarum (11th
c.?),
On the date of this work, see G.J. Reinink,
“Communal Identity and Systematisation of Knowledge in
the Syriac ‘Cause of All Causes’”, in P.
Binkley (ed.), Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts. Proceedings
of the COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1-4 July 1996
(Leiden-New York-Cologne, 1997), 275-288, here 287 with n. 51.
as well as the Hexaemeron of Moses bar
Kepha (833-903)
I follow J. Reller (Mose bar Kepha und seine
Paulinusauslegung, nebst Edition und Übersetzung des
Kommentars zum Römerbrief [Wiesbaden, 1994] 33) here
in placing Bar Kepha’s date of birth in 833 rather than
in 813.
and the Book of Treasures (=
Thes.) of Severus Jacob bar Shakko (ob. 1240/1), both of
whom mostly closely follow Jacob of Edessa’s account in
their accounts of geography. Among works dealing with geography
in Arabic, I shall have occasion to compare the works of Bar
cEbroyo with those of Abû al-Raihân al-Bîrûnî (973-1048),
whose K. al-tafhîm li-awâ’il sinâcat al-tanjîm appears
in fact to have been the source of large parts of the Second
Base of Cand.,
See Takahashi, “The Greco-Syriac and Arabic
Sources of Barhebraeus’ Mineralogy and Meteorology in
Candelabrum of the sanctuary, Base II”, Islamic
Studies (Islamabad) 41:2 (2002) 215-269, esp. 247-252, 255f.
as well as with those of the geographers of
the so-called “Balkhî” school (incl.
Istakhrî, ob. 934; Ibn
Hauqal, ob. 980; Muqaddasî, ob.
985). Another group of geographical accounts we shall be
concerned with is that in Battânî’s (858-929)
astronomical tables (zîj), together with the
closely related accounts in Ibn Rusta (fl. ca. 922) and
Kharaqî (ob. 1138/9). Reference will often be made also
to other works of Bar cEbroyo, such as the first,
political, part of his Maktbonut zabnê
(Chronicon, = Chron.) and his Awsar rozê (Horreum mysteriorum, =
Horr.), along with the works used as sources in these
works, such as the Chronicle of Patriarch Michael I (the
Elder, Syrus) and Juwainî’s History of the World
Conqueror (Târîkh-i
jahângushâ).
The editions (ed.), translations (tr.) and
manuscripts (ms.) used are as follows: De mundo, Syriac
version (=
De mundo syr.): ed. de Lagarde (1858)
134-158; partial tr. Ryssel (1880); cf. also the comments on de
Lagarde’s edition in A. Baumstark, Lucubrationes
Syro-Graecae (Leipzig, 1894); and the Arabic versions
edited by Brafman (Diss. 1985). – Jacob of Edessa,
Hexaemeron: ed. Chabot (1928); tr. Vaschalde (1932). On
the relationship of Jacob’s geographical account to
Ptolemy’s Geography, see now M.G. Schmidt, Die
Nebenüberlieferung des 6. Buches der Geographie des
Ptolemaios. Griechische, lateinische, syrische, armenische und
arabische Texte (Wiesbaden, 1999) 57-66, with the
literature cited there. – Moses bar Kepha,
Hexaemeron: mss. Paris, syr. 241 and syr. 311; tr.
Schlimme (1977). – Severus Jacob bar Shakko,
Book of Treasures (Ktobo d-simoto): mss. Paris,
syr. 316, London, British Library, Add. 7193; summary in F.
Nau, “Notice sur le Livre des Trésors de Jacques
de Bartela, Évêque de Tagrit”, JA 9e
série 7 (1896) 286-331. –
Causa
causarum
(
cEllat kul ellon): ms.
Florence, Laur. or. 298, fol. 85r-139r (olim Palat. or. 62
Assemani; wrongly identified as a part of Bar
cEbroyo’s
Hewat
hekmto by S.E. Assemani,
Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae et Palatinae codicum mms.
orientalium catalogus [Florence, 1742] 109); tr. Kayser
(1893). The edition by Kayser (Leipzig, 1889) was inaccessible
to me. – Abû al-Raihân
Muhammad b. Ahmad
al-Bîrûnî, K. al-tafhîm
li-awâ’il sinâcat al-tanjîm (=
Tafhîm
): facsimile ed./tr. R.R. Wright
(1934); Persian version: ed. Humâ’î (1316
h.). – Id., Ta’rîkh al-Hind (=
Hind
): ed. Sachau (1887); tr. Sachau (1910).
– Id., K. tahdîd
nihâyat al-amâkin (=
Tahdîd
): ed. Bulgakov-Ahmad (1962). – Abû
cAbd-Allâh Muhammad b.
Jarîr b. Sinân al-Battânî
al-Sâbî al-Harrânî, al-Zîj al-sâbî: ed./tr. Nallino (1899-1907)
[the references without volume numbers are to vol. III, which
contains the Arabic text]. – Abû
cAlî Ahmad b.
cUmar Ibn Rusta, K.
al-aclâq al-nafîsa, Book VII: ed. de
Goeje. (1892); tr. Wiet (1955). – Abû Bakr
Muhammad b. Ahmad
al-Kharaqî, Muntahâ al-idrâk
fî taqsîm al-aflâk: excerpt in Nallino,
op. cit. (1899-1907), I.169-175 (As noted by Wright in his
edition of Bîrûnî, Tafhîm, p.
121 n.2, this passage of Kharaqî, who in fact names
“al-Jaihânî and others” as his source,
looks very much like a conflation of the material which he
derived from Jaihânî and shares with
Battânî and Ibn Rusta with the account of the seas
in Bîrûnî, Tafhîm). –
Abû Ishâq
Ibrâhîm b. Muhammad
al-Fârisî al-Istakhrî, K. al-masâlik
wa-l-mamâlik: ed. de Goeje (1870). – Abû
al-Qâsim Ibn Hauqal
al-Nasîbî, K.
sûrat al-ard
: ed. Kramers, (1938-9); tr. Kramers-Wiet
(1964). – Shams al-Dîn Abû
cAbd-Allâh Muhammad
al-Muqaddasî, Ahsan
al-taqâsîm fî macrifat
al-aqâlîm: ed. de Goeje (1906). –
Hudûd
al-câlam
: tr. Minorsky (1937). –
Yâqût al-Hamawî al-Rûmî
(1179–1229), K. mucjam al-buldân:
ed. Wüstenfeld (1866-73); partial tr. Jwaideh (1959).
– Nasîr al-Dîn
Muhammad b. Muhammad al-
Tûsî (1201-74), Tadhkira fî
cilm al-hai’a (= Tadhkira): ed./tr.
Ragep (1993). – Id., Risâla-i
Mucînîya: facsimile ed.
Dânishpazhûh (1335 h.). –
Zakarîyâ’ b. Muhammad
b. Mahmud al-Qazwînî
(ca. 1203-1283),
cAjâ’ib
al-makhlûqât (=
cAjâ’ib) and Âthâr
al-bilâd (= Âthâr): ed.
Wüstenfeld, (1848-9); partial tr. of
cAjâ’ib, Ethé (1868).
– cImâd al-Dîn
Ismâ’îl b. Muhammad b.
cUmar Abû al-Fidâ’
(1273-1331), Taqwîm al-buldân: ed.
Reinaud-de Slane (1840). – Shams al-Dîn
Muhammad b. Abî Tâlib al-Dimashqî, K. nukhbat
al-dahr: ed. Mehren (1866); tr. Mehren (1874). – Bar
cEbroyo,
Chron
.: references, unless
otherwise indicated, are to ed. Bedjan (1890); also ed.
Bruns-Kirsch (1789); facsimile ed./tr. Budge (1932). –
Horr
.: various editions and manuscripts. –
Michael, Chron.: ed./tr. Chabot (1899-1910) [the
references without volume numbers are to vol. IV, which
contains the Syriac text]. – cAlâ’
al-Dîn cAtâ Malik
b. Muhammad Juwainî,
Târikh-i jahângushâ: ed. Qazwini
(1912-37); tr. Boyle (1958). – The English translations
of the passages, unless otherwise indicated, are mine.
[6] The
comparison of passages from different works ought also to give
us some insights into the relationship between these works and
into the manner in which Bar cEbroyo altered his
methods of composition during his literary career.
[7]
Concerning this aspect of the study, it should be pointed out
from the outset that Cand. is the earliest of the five
works under consideration, the probable date for the
composition of its Second Base being 1266/7 A.D.
See ed. Bakos, 221.6-8, where Bar
cEbroyo talks of 1575 A.Gr. (1263/4) as being
“three years ago”. Cf. Takahashi, “Simeon of
Qalca Rumaita, Patriarch Philoxenus Nemrod and Bar
cEbroyo”, Hugoye IV/1 (2001) n. 45.
For the
composition of Asc. and Eth., too, we have the
definite date of 1279 A.D.
For Eth. we have the exact date of
completion, 15th July 1279 in Maragha, given, for example, in
mss. British Library, Add. 7194 (F. Rosen & J. Forshall,
Catalogus codicum orientalium qui in Museo Britannico
asservatur. Pars prima, codices syriacos et carshunicos
amplectens [London, 1838] 85) and Laur. or. 298, 81r 14f. (in a
list of Bar cEbroyo’s works); cf. H. Teule,
Gregory Barhebraeus. Ethicon (Mēmrā I)
(Louvain, 1993) versio ix-x. – For Asc., see ed.
Nau (1899) texte 26.4f., 196.10f., traduction (intro.) p. iii.
Manuscripts of But. tell
us that the part of this work dealing with the natural
sciences, the part which concerns us here, was finished on 22nd
August 1285, while the work as a whole was completed on 8th
February 1286, a little less than six months before the
author’s departure from this world.
For the first date, ms. Birmingham, Mingana
syr. 310, 216r; for the second, ms. Florence, Laur. or. 83,
227r.
The date of
Rad. is uncertain, but given that it is to a large
extent a summary of Cand., its date can be placed after
that of Cand. with some safety. We also have some clues
for the terminus ante quem for the composition of
Rad. in that this work is mentioned by Bar
cEbroyo in three of his other works, the Swod
sufiya, Awsar rozê (=
Horr.) and K. d-huddoyê
(Nomocanon).
Swod sufiya I.4, ed. H.F. Janssens,
L’Entretien de la sagesse. Introduction aux oeuvres
philosophiques de Bar Hebraeus (Liège-Paris, 1937)
54.5, tr. 173; Horr. in II Thess. 2:3, ms. Bodl. Hunt.
1, p. 145b 50; and K. d-huddoyê/Nomocanon
VII.9, ed. P. Bedjan, Nomocanon Gregorii Barhebraei
(Paris-Leipzig, 1898) 106.10f. (mentioned there together with
Cand.).
Of these three, the usually accepted
period for the composition of Horr. is mid-Dec. 1277 to
3rd Aug. 1278 (1589 A.Gr.) given in the colophon of ms. Vat.
syr. 282 and reported by J.S. Assemani in his Bibliotheca
Orientalis (II.277).
Vat. syr. 282 is itself dated 1633 A.D. and
was copied from an exemplar dated 1353/4. The same date of
composition is given in BL Or. 12957, reportedly copied in
1353/4 and 1437/8, whereby it is unclear whether 1353/4 is the
date of this manuscript itself or its exemplar, but the
coincidence of this date with that of the exemplar of Vat. syr.
282 suggests at any rate that the two manuscripts are related.
The colophon, however, of ms.
Laur. or. 230 (itself copied in 1278 A.D.) gives the date of
composition as mid-Dec. 1271 to 9th July 1272 (1583
A.Gr.),
See S.E. Assemani (1742) 68; R.
Schröter, Gregorii Bar-Hebraei scholia in Psalmum VIII,
XL, XLI, L (Breslau, 1857). The same date is also given in
ms. Bodl. Hunt. 1 (itself dated ca. 1498), while two further
manuscripts reportedly give mid-Dec. 1271 as the date of
completion (as opposed to commencement) of the work (ms.
Charfeh, ancient fonds, syr. 1.4, see J. Parisot, “La
bibliothèque du séminaire syrien de
Charfé”, ROC 4 [1899] 150-174, here 152; ms. olim
coll. Yacqûb b. Butrus
Sâkâ, no.1 [now with Metr. Ishâq Sâkâ?], see B.
Dâniyâl, “Al-shâcir
Yacqûb Sâkâ (1864-1931)”,
Journal of the Iraq Academy, Syriac Corporation 6 [1981/2]
301-340, in connection with the present location of the
manuscript, see I. Sâkâ, Mimre mgabbye men
mushhoto d-qashshisho Yacqub
Sâkâ, 2nd ed. [Atshâna, 1999] p. 12).
– It may be noted that the second colophon in Laur. or.
230 gives the date of the copy as Tue. 24th Ab 1589 A.Gr. (see
Schröter [1857] 2). This date was read by S.E. Assemani
(1742) 68 as 3rd Ab 1589 (presumably misreading “yum
tloto”, “Tuesday”, as the date instead of
the day of the week), which happens to be the same as the date
given for the completion of the work in Vat. syr. 282. This
error of Assemani’s suggests to us the possibility that
the date of composition given in Vat. syr. 282 may have arisen
out of the conflation of the two colophons in Laur. or. 230,
combined with a similar misreading.
while in ms. Berol. Sachau 326 (182 Sachau;
copied in 1297/8), too, the letter indicating the last digit of
the year is evidently a gomal, = “3” (i.e.
“1583”), even if some have tried to emend this to
tet (= 9) to make the date accord
with that given by Assemani.
So S. Kaatz, Die Scholien des Gregorius
Abulfaragius Bar Hebraeus zum Weisheitsbuch des Josua ben
Sira (Berlin-Frankfurt, 1892) 6, n.1; E. Sachau,
Verzeichnis der syrischen Handschriften der Königlichen
Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin, 1899) 596; cf. J.
Göttsberger, Barhebräus und seine Scholien zur
Heiligen Schrift (Freiburg, 1900) 60, n.4. – Some
further support for the earlier date of 1272 is provided by
Sbath’s report that an Arabic translation of Horr.
which he saw in Jerusalem (apud Metr. Iliyas Hallûli) had
been made from a Syriac manuscript dated 1585 A.Gr./1273/4 A.D.
(P. Sbath, Al-Fihris [Cairo, 1938-42] no. 1393).
If this earlier date of 1272 for
Horr. is correct, the date of composition of Rad.
will have to be placed before that date, unless we allow
for continued revision of these works by the author after their
original composition.
1. Mediterranean Sea
1.1. General
[8] Cand. [Bakos
154.3-9, Gottheil 47.1-5, Çiçek 111.5-17]: The
Universal Sea (yammo kullonoyo) which is outside the
whole Habitable World (
comarto) and surrounds
the whole earth like a single island is called the Atlantic and
the Oceanus. Some call its western side in particular the
Oceanus. To this [ocean] a narrow mouth (fumo
aliso) is open from inside [the
Habitable World] in the west, which is called the Passage of
Hercules (macbarto d-’RQLYS). There,
too, are the Stelae (STYL’S), or Pillars (qoymoto), of
Hercules. This mouth widens out as it proceeds
(rodê) westwards and forms the gulf
(
cubbo) of that sea Adrias (haw yammo
’DRYWS), which is the Sea of the Romans and the Sea
of Syria (yammo d-rumoyê w-yammo d-suriya).
Rad. [Istanbul 35.16-18, 37.7-12,
Gottheil 53.1, 53.16-54.4]: Ray (zalgo): The sea Oceanus
surrounds the whole Habitable World
(metcamronito) like a single island. ... Ray:
Here [sc. by the Isles of the Blessed and Gadeira] a narrow
mouth is open, whose width is only seven miles, where the
Stelae (STLS), or Pillars,
of Hercules (HRQLYS), are. It makes a breach
(torac
) and passes through the middle of the
Habitable World (
comarto). It extends towards
the east [in] a space (wacdo) 5,000 miles in
length and 800 in width, and forms this sea of us westerners
called the Adriatic.
Asc. [Nau 134.19-135.4]: While the
Universal Sea surrounds the whole Habitable World
(
comarto) in a circle
(qiqloso’it) like a single island, many tongues
(leshshone) enter from it into (the Habitable World).
The largest tongue among them is the one that enters [the
Habitable World] from the narrow mouth, which is opposite the
Isles of the Blessed, whose width is only seven miles, and
where the Pillars (qoymoto) of Hercules are. It extends
inside the Habitable World towards the east [in] a space 5,000
miles in length and 800 in width, and forms this great sea
called the Adriatic, ...
Eth. [Bedjan 458.18-20, 459.10-13;
Çiçek 236a 6-9, 23-27]: On this day, as the
waters gathered in one place, the Universal Sea was formed,
which surrounds the earth like a belt (qamro). [Issuing]
from it, the particular seas gain mastery
(eshtallat
) over the face of the
earth in various places. ... Through the breach opposite the
Isles of the Blessed, where the Pillars of Hercules are, this
sea called the Adriatic enters like a tongue from the Universal
Sea into the Habitable World.
But., Min. V.i.1: That sea which
surrounds the whole earth like a single island is called the
Atlantic. In the west a narrow mouth is open to it at the
Stelae (STLS), or Pillars,
of Hercules. Through it it enters the Habitable World as if
into some harbour and forms this well-known sea which is called
the Oceanus [sic] by many.
“Oceanus”: This is the reading
of the great majority of manuscripts
(’WQY’NWS codd. MWPLl; ’WQYNWS
cod. V). Cod. F has ’DRY’S over an erasure,
under which the ending -NWS of the original reading can
be deciphered.
... V.i.2.: In the south of this
sea there are two gulfs and in them are two islands called the
Greater and Lesser Syrtes. In its northern (side) are three
gulfs, the Sardinian (SDRWNYQWN cod. F, SRDWNYQWN
ceteri), the Galatian (G’L’TYQWN cod. F) and the Adriatic
(’DRY’NWS cod. F), and after these a
slanting gulf called the Sicilian (SYQYLYQWN).
Cf. De mundo syr. 139.16-21, 139.23-140.1
[< gr. 393a 16-21, 23-28]: That sea which is outside the
whole Habitable World is called the Atlantic and the Oceanus.
It also flows around us here. Because on the west a narrow
mouth (fumo aliso) is open to it
from the inside – at what are called the Stelae
(STLWS) of Hercules – its
flow proceeds into this sea by us, as if into some harbour, and
thus widens out little by little here, spreading out until it
embraces (lobek < perilambánô)
the large gulfs which adjoin each other. … It is said
first to widen out to the right after proceeding from the
Stelae (ST’LS) of
Hercules and is divided into two gulfs and passes the islands
called the Syrtes, one of which they call the Greater Syrtes
and the other the Lesser Syrtes. On the other, northern, side
it does not widen out immediately in the same way, but makes
there too three gulfs (
cubbin),
In the Greek original of the De
Mundo, the northern subdivisions of the Mediterranean are
called “seas” (pelágê) as
opposed to “gulfs” (note 393a 26: oukéti
homoíôs apokolpoúmenos). The Syriac
version, which Bar cEbroyo is following, ignores
this distinction.
that
called the Sardinian (SWRDWNYQWN), that called the
Galatian (G’LTYQWN) and the
Great Adriatic (’DRY’S rabbo). After these
is another slanting gulf which is called the Sicilian
(SQYLYQWN).
[9] There
are, I believe, sufficient similarities between the above
passages of Cand. and De mundo syr. to allow us
to identify the latter as one of the principal sources of the
former here (e.g. “called the Atlantic and the
Oceanus”, “narrow mouth”,
“Stelae of Hercules”). A number of elements
in the passage of Cand., however, are suggestive of the
use also of an Arabic source, such as the names “Sea of
the Romans” and “Sea of Syria” for the
Mediterranean (cf. arab. bahr
al-rûm and bahr
al-shâm) and the mention of the “passage”
(macbarto), along with the
“pillars”, of Hercules. In connection with the
latter it may be noted that the “Passage of
Hercules” (macbarat
Hîrqlîs) is precisely the term used for the
Strait of Gibraltar by Bîrûnî in his
Tafhîm (123.5).
[10] The
notion of the Ocean surrounding the Habitable World (oekumene)
as if the latter were “a single island” can also be
found in the De mundo, not in the passage quoted above
but a little earlier at De mundo syr. 138.18-19.
De mundo syr. 138.18-19 (< gr.
392b 21-22): “... because they did not discern that the
whole habitable world [yotebto here, but
comarto 138.17] was a single island
(
hdo gozarto), surrounded by that
sea called the Atlantic”.
The
comparison, however, of the Ocean to a “belt”
(qamro), which we find in the part of Eth. quoted
above and at a later point in Cand., is not in the De
mundo and this comparison allows us to connect the passages
in question in Cand. and Eth. with Bar
Kepha.
Cand. [Bakos] 157.11-158.1:
“Thus the whole Habitable World lies (foysho) like
a single island inside the Universal Sea and (the latter)
surrounds (
hdir) the earth like a
crown (klilo) the head and a belt (qamro) the
loins”. – Cf. Bar Kepha, Hex., Paris syr.
311, 46r a 6-10: ’WQY’NWS man itaw yammo haw
rabbo, haw d-it noshin d-omrin mettuloteh, da-krik l-kulloh arco ak klilo
l-risho w-ak qamro l-hasso (“The Oceanus is that great sea,
concerning which some say that it encircles the whole earth
like a crown the head and a belt the loins”). The
comparison with the belt is missing at the corresponding place
in ms. Paris syr. 241 (172r 29-v3) and is hence also missing in
Schlimme’s translation (p. 572). Interestingly, it is
also there in the Parisinus (syr. 316, 172v 15-18) of Bar
Shakko, Thes., but is missing in the Londinensis (Add.
7193, 70r b20-21). – The comparison with a crown is
attributed to Aristotle in Kharaqî [Nallino (1899-1907)]
I.175.13f., as well as in Qutb
al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî’s
Nâhiyat al-idrâk (partial tr. E. Wiedemann,
“Beiträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften
XXVII”, Sitzungeberichte der physicalisch-medicinischen
Societät zu Erlangen 44 [1912] 1-40, here 31) and id.
al-Tuhfa al-shâhîya
(sec. Nallino, I.173 n.(1)). – For further instances in
Syriac talking of the Ocean surrounding the earth/habitable
world, see Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus (Oxford,
1879-1901) [= Thes. syr.] col. 88, s.v.
’WQY’NWS; also Ps.-Berosus, ed. G. Levi
della Vida, “Pseudo-Beroso siriaco”, RSO 3 (1910)
7-43, 611-612, here 15.8-9. – The notion is, of course,
also very much present in the term frequently used in Arabic
for the Ocean, al-bahr
al-muhît
, the “surrounding sea”.
[11] In
Cand., Rad., Asc. and Eth. (also in
Horr.), though not in But.,
On But., see para. [] below.
Bar
cEbroyo follows earlier Syriac authors in calling
the Mediterranean the “Adriatic”.
R. Payne Smith, Thes. syr. 64
s.v. ’DRY’S; cf. Nau [1899] tr. 119 n. 2.
The spelling
of the word varies, but the most frequently encountered forms
in earlier authors are ’DRY’S and
’DRYWS.
So, for example, Jacob of Edessa,
Hex. 99b 3, 35, 100b 2, 7 etc.
(’DRY’S); Bar Kepha, Hex. Paris syr.
311, 42r b32, 46r a 3 (’DRY’S), 42v a1, 6,
24 (’DRYWS); Michael, Chron. 149b 29
(’DRYWS, tr. I.292), 411b 6, 9
(’DRY’S, ’DR’S, tr.
II.414), 515c 3 (’DRY’S, III.62).
Of these the latter seems to be the
preferred form in Bar cEbroyo.
We find ’DRYWS at Cand.
[Bakos] 154.9, 155.1; Rad. [Istanbul] 17.5, 38.10;
Asc. [Nau] 137.3, 140.13-15; Horr. in Gen. 1:9
(ed. Sprengling-Graham 10.22, with syomê), in Act.
2:10 (ed. Klamroth [1878] 6.5). –
’DRY’S at Cand. [Bakos] 161.10 cum
cod. Paris. (sed ’DRYWS Berol.), Rad.
[Istanbul] 37.12 cum cod. Bodl. (sed ’DRYWS
Gottheil cum Paris. et Berol.).
The origin of the
forms ending in -NWS, which we encounter at Asc.
135.4, Eth. [Bedjan] 453.12, But. Min. V.i.1
(’DRY’NWS) and Chron. [Bedjan] 449.6
(’DRYNWS), remains a mystery,
In Greek, the adjectival form
“adrianós” is attested in a fragment of
Aeschylus (Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon,
9th ed. with Supplement [Oxford, 1968] 24b, s.v.). In Syriac,
there is an instance where a word ending in -NWS is used
for the “Adriatic/Mediterranean” in the
Chronicon ad 724 pertinens (ed. E.W. Brooks, Chronica
minora II [Paris, 1904] 351.7: yammo rabbo HDRYNWS).
unless we can
assume some confusion in Bar cEbroyo’s mind
with the name of the Roman emperor Hadrian,
The emperor is mentioned by Bar
cEbroyo at Chron. [Bedjan] 52.13, 22
(’DRYNWS).
or some vague
influence of the ending of the word “Oceanus”
(’WQY[’]NWS).
[12] The
close similarity between the passages of Rad. and
Asc. quoted above requires no further comment. The
similarity between the geographical accounts in these two works
(also, to an extent, the account in Eth.) will also be
apparent in much of the rest of this paper.
On the length and breadth of the
Mediterranean given here in Rad. and Asc., see
para. [] below.
[13] The
names of the gulfs which Bar cEbroyo adds in
But. are clearly taken from the Syriac version of the
De mundo, which is also the source of the error whereby
Bar cEbroyo turns the Syrtes into islands.
Concerning the error in De mundo
syr., see Ryssel (1880) 27, footnote a; Baumstark (1894) 412.
– The Syrtes are rightly counted among the gulfs of the
Mediterranean by Jacob of Edessa (Hex. 100a 18f.) and,
following him, by Bar Kepha (Hex., Paris. syr. 241, 172v
a14, syr. 311, 46r a19, tr. 572) and Bar Shakko (Thes.
Paris. syr. 316, 173r 7, BL Add. 7193, 70v a27; cf. Nau [1896]
312).
The
De mundo also gives us a reason for the rejection of
“Adriatic”, if not for its replacement by
“Oceanus”, as the name for the Mediterranean as a
whole in But., namely, the realisation upon re-reading
of the De mundo that “Adriatic” was applied
there to one of the gulfs within the Mediterranean. The reason
for its replacement by “Oceanus” is more difficult
to find, but Bar cEbroyo’s knowledge that
“some call only the western side [of the Universal Sea]
the Oceanus” (Cand. 154.5) may have had a role to
play in causing the confusion here, since the term
“Western Sea” (yammo macrboyo) is
already found applied to the Mediterranean in the 6-7th c.
Syriac version of Ps.-Nonnos’ scholia on the homilies of
Gregory of Nazianzus,
In the scholia on ‘Invective
II’, 35, ed. S. Brock, The Syriac Version of the
Pseudo-Nonnos Mythological Scholia (Cambridge, 1971), p.
301, tr. p. 151: GDYR’ ger iteyh ak maclono
men ’WQ’NWS lwot yammo macrboyo.
Some, at least, of the Ps.-Nonnian scholia were known to Bar
cEbroyo (see Brock [1971] 16, 31, 33).
and the name “Sea of the
West” (bahr al-maghrib) is
then also frequently given to that sea by the Arabs.
1.2. Black Sea (Pontus)
[14] Cand.
[Bakos 154.9-155.1, Gottheil 47.7-8, Çiçek
111.17-20]: From this gulf a tongue (leshshono meddem)
goes out (metyabbal) and thins out (metqattan), passes by the walls (shuro) of
Constantinople, and is called the sea of Pontus (yammo
d-PNTWS/PWNTWS).
Rad. [Istanbul 38.6-10, Gottheil
54.11-13]: Ray. The Sea of Pontus is in the land of the
Scythians.
The “Scythians” here may well be
intended as equivalent to Bîrûnî’s
“Slavs (and Russians)”, since the equation of
squtoyê with the Arabic
saqâliba is encountered elsewhere in Bar
cEbroyo as well as in Syriac lexica (see Payne
Smith, Thes. syr. col. 2715).
Its length is 1,300 miles up to Trebizond and
its width 300 miles. From it a narrow tongue (leshshono
aliso) passes by the walls of
Byzantium and is cast (rmê) into the Adriatic
Sea.
Asc. [Nau 136.21-137.5]: Among these is
the Sea of Pontus, i.e. of Trebizond, but it is called a sea
and not a lake because of its size. Its length is 1,300 miles
and its width 300 miles. From it a thin tongue passes
(
cobed ed. Nau: lege
cobar)
by the walls of Byzantium and empties (shodê) into
the Adriatic Sea, just as the Adriatic [flows] into the
Oceanus. Some call this tongue the canal (
turacto) of Alexander the son of
Philip, as if he had opened it.
Eth. [Bedjan 453.18-20,
Çiçek 236b 6-8]: There are other seas besides
this one [sc. the Mediterranean], the Sea of Pontus and
Hyrcania in the north ...
But. V.i.2: From the Adriatic a thin
tongue goes out towards the north and passes by Byzantium and
empties into the Sea of Pontus, ...
Cf. Bîrûnî,
Tafhîm 122.15-123.2 [corr. pers. 168.10-13;
Yâqût 21.13-16]: Then, in the middle of the
Habitable World, in the lands of the Slavs
(saqâliba) and Russians (rûs) is the
sea known as the Pontus among the Greeks and known among us as
[the Sea of] Trebizond because (Trebizond) is a port on (its
shore). From it a channel (khalîj) goes out, which
passes by the walls (sûr) of Constantinople and
continually thins out until it falls into the Sea of Syria.
[15] A
number of features in the passage of Cand., as well as
those in later works, allow us to connect these passages with
the passage of Bîrûnî’s
Tafhîm. Particularly noteworthy among such
features is the mention of the “walls”
(shuro, arab. sûr) of
Constantinople/Byzantium.
[16] The
word “tongue”, leshshono (d-yammo), is used
several times of a narrow stretch of the sea in the Syriac
Bible,
See Payne Smith, Thes. syr.
col. 1973 s.v. leshshono, 4).
while the Arabic lisân is also
frequently used in that sense. As the direct source of the
expression here, however, one might reckon the phrase
“leshshono meddem aliso” at De mundo syr. 140.27 (quoted
under para. [49] below), whence we have
“leshshono meddem” in the passage of
Cand. quoted above and “leshshono
aliso”, coupled with the verb
“rmê” as in the De mundo, in
Rad.
[17]
Concerning the name for the Black Sea, it may be noted that Bar
cEbroyo constantly uses the form “the Sea
of Pontus”, evidently unaware of the meaning of
the Greek word “póntos”. The usual
Arabic form “bahr
buntus” will have favoured the
interpretation “Sea of Pontus” and Bar
cEbroyo knew furthermore that there was a region of
Anatolia called the “Pontus”,
Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bedjan] 23.17, 57.25, 258.7, 289.20, 317.23, 416.16; cf. also
ibid. 313.4, 429.4 (sfor yammo d-PWNTWS).
so that he may
have thought that the name of the sea was derived from the
region, not vice versa. The error is avoided by Jacob of Edessa
et al.
e.g. Jacob, Hex. 100a 14, 100b 25.
1.3. Lands around the Mediterranean
[18] Cand.
[Bakos 155.1-3, 4-5, Gottheil 47.8-10, 11-12,
Çiçek 111.20-24, 27-29]: Thus, to the south of
the Adriatic Sea (yammo ’DRYWS) lie
(foysho) Alexandria and Egypt (mesrin); to its north Constantinople
(QWSTNTYNWPLYS), Rome and the whole land of the Franks
(kulleh atro da-frangiya).
PRNGY’ with syomê
Çiçek, without Bakos.
... [see paragraph
[22] below] … To its east are the
lands of Syria. So much on this sea of ours (w-holeyn man
d-yammo hono dilan).
This last sentence was misunderstood by both
Gottheil (1890) 41 and Bakoš (“... the lands of
Syria and those of this our sea”, “... les terres
de Syrie et les terres de notre mer”). – For the
designation of the Mediterranean as “our sea”, cf.
De mundo syr. 149.19f.: yammo hono da-lwotan (gr.
393a 19 hê ésô thálassa).
Rad. [Istanbul 37.11-17, Gottheil
54.2-6]: ... this sea of us westerners called the Adriatic. To
its north are Rome, the land of the Franks (frangiya),
Byzantium (buzantiya) and the
whole of Europe; to its south, which is called the Sicilian
(gulf), are Abyssinians, Nubians, Berbers, Egypt
(iguptos), Alexandria and the
whole of Libya; to its east, which is called the Sea of the
Syrians, are Tyre, Sidon and the whole of Asia.
Asc. [Nau 135.3-6]: ... this great sea
called the Adriatic, to whose west are the Isles of the
Blessed, to whose east Palestine, to whose north Great Rome and
Byzantium, and to whose south Africa.
Eth. [Bedjan 453.13-14,
Çiçek 236a 28-30]: To its east is Syria, to its
north are Byzantium and Rome, and to its south is Africa.
But. V.i.1: To its east is Asia, to its
west are the Stelae, to its north is Europe and to its
south is Libya.
Cf. Bîrûnî,
Tafhîm 123.2-4 [pers. 168.13-15]: ... the Sea of
Syria (bahr al-shâm), to
the south of which are the land of Maghrib (bilâd
al-maghrib; add wa-ifrîqîya pers.) up to
Alexandria and Egypt (misr).
Opposite them in the north are al-Andalus and al-Rûm
(rûmîya wa-rûm pers.) up to Antioch.
Between the two are Syria (bilâd al-shâm)
and Palestine.
[19]
Although not all the places mentioned in Cand. can be
found in Bîrûnî’s Tafhîm,
there is, I believe, sufficient agreement between the two to
indicate that the latter is probably the principal source of
the former here. It may be noted in particular that the order
“south-north-east” is the same in these two works,
but is altered in Bar cEbroyo’s later works
(“north-south-east” in Rad.,
“west-east-north-south” in Asc.,
“east-north-south” in Eth.,
“east-west-north-south” in But.).
[20] Of
the newly-mentioned places in Rad., the Abyssinians and
Nubians had already been mentioned in connection with the Ocean
in Cand. (155.8). The “Sicilian (Gulf)” may
be taken from the De mundo (syr. 140.1; cf. But.
Min. V.i.2), although there it is one of the gulfs on the
northern side of the Mediterranean. Descriptions of the
Mediterranean where Tyre and Sidon feature prominently are
found in the Causa causarum and in
Battânî’s Zîj, as well as the
passages of Ibn Rusta and Kharaqî related to the
latter.
Causa causarum, Laur. or. 298, 131v
b28; tr. Kayser 339; Battânî, Zîj
27.1; Ibn Rusta 84.17; Kharaqî [Nallino] I.174.17.
[21] In
Rad. Bar cEbroyo adds to his list of places
the names of the three continents, Europe, Libya and Asia, and
in But. the list is reduced to that of these continents
only, along with the “Stelae” in the west.
The division of the Habitable World into three continents goes
back to the Greeks.
Arist. Mete. 350a 18-b14; De
mundo gr. 393b 21-394a 4, syr. 140.24-141.9; Ptolemy,
Geog. VII.5 etc.
The definition of Europe and Libya (our
Africa) as lands to the north and south, respectively, of the
Mediterranean and of Asia as lands to the east of these is
encountered, among Bar cEbroyo’s Syriac
predecessors, in Jacob of Edessa.
Jacob of Edessa, Hex. 111a 7-28;
followed by Bar Kepha, Hex., Paris syr. 241, 168v
b15-169.18, Paris syr. 311, 42r b22-43r b11, with a diagram
illustrating this on syr. 241, 169r, syr. 311, 43r (tr.
Schlimme, p. 561f., diagram on p. 653; diagram from Paris 241
also in J.B. Chabot, “Notice sur une mappemonde syrienne
du XIIIe siècle”, Bulletin de géographie
historique et descriptive 1897.98-112, here 98); and Bar
Shakko, Thes., Paris syr. 316, 171r 11-172r 7, BL Add.
7193, 69r b5-70r a10, with a diagram identical to that in Bar
Kepha on syr. 316, 172r, Add. 7193, 70r (cf. Nau [1896] 308f.).
– Cf. also Michael, Chron. 411b 2-10, tr. II.414,
giving a similar definition, but with Greater Asia defined as
lands to the east of the Mediterranean, in connection with the
jurisdictions of the patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople
(Europe), Alexandria (Africa) and Antioch (Asia). – The
Causa causarum, Laur. or. 298, 134v a1-135r b36 (diagram
on 134v; tr. Kayser 344-6), gives a rather different tripartite
division of the world, which uses the Mediterranean (called
there the “Sea of Hellespont”) as a point of
reference, but includes India and much of the Middle East
(“Elam, Media, Beth Kaldoye, Athor, Mesopotamia”)
in Libya (!).
We find much the same
definition, but with Asia defined as lands to the east of Egypt
in an earlier part of Cand. (103.12-104.8; ≈
Rad. 17.1-8), in a passage where Bar cEbroyo
mentions that this is the division according to Ptolemy’s
Geography but for the rest follows the text of
Bîrûnî’s Tafhîm 141.5-10.
A similar definition again, but with Asia defined as here in
But. as the lands to the east of the Mediterranean, is
found at Asc. 140.11-18.
Cf. also Bar cEbroyo,
Horr. in Act. 2:10 (ed. Klamroth [1878] 6.3-5):
“‘Asia’: Lesser: Babel and
Khurâsân; Greater: all the land to the east of
Egypt. – ‘Phrygia and Pamphilia’: the lands
to the north of the Mediterranean (yammo ’DRYWS);
land of the Franks (frangiya) etc. – ‘Libya
near Cyrene’: the lands to the south of the
Mediterranean; Abyssinians (
habashoyê) etc.”
1.4 Islands in the Mediterranean
[22] Cand.
[Bakos 155.3f., Gottheil 47.10f., Çiçek
111.24-27]: In it are the famous islands which are best-known
to us, such as Cyprus, Samos, Chios, Rhodes and Sicily.
Rad. [Istanbul 37.17-38.6; Gottheil
54.6-10]: In this [sea] are five large islands, the smallest of
which is Cyprus, whose circumference is 200 miles; [the
circumference] of Sardinia [is] 300, of Sicily 500, of Crete
300, of Corsica [QWRNWS, Cyrnus] 350. [There are also]
five small [islands], Rhodes, QWMNWS [< “Cos
and Chios”],
See para. [] below.
Samos, Euboea, Chios, and 252 others
which are not well-known (d-lo mshammhon).
Asc. [Nau 135.7-15]: In it are many
islands. Five are large, the first of which is Cyprus; its
circumference is 200 miles and it is the smallest of them. The
second is Sardinia, whose circumference is 300 miles. The third
is Corsica [Cyrnus] and its circumference is 300 miles. The
fourth is Sicily and its circumference is 500 miles. The fifth
is Crete and its circumference is 300 miles. The smaller
[islands] are five [in number] and are: Rhodes, QWMWS,
Samos, Euboea, Chios; and 250 others which are not famous
(d-lo tbibon).
Eth. [Bedjan 453.14-17,
Çiçek 236a 30-b 6]: In this tongue
(leshshono) are ten well-known (mshammhoto)
islands. Five of them are large, the smallest of them being
Cyprus, and five [are] small; and [there are also] 252 others,
which, though not famous (lo tbibon), are nevertheless not devoid of people
(noshuto).
But.: In it are the large islands Sicily,
Samos, Chios, Rhodes and Cyprus, as well as many small ones.
They all abound in people (noshuto) and crops.
Although I follow the vocalised manuscripts
(LlPV; which are all of relatively recent date) here in reading
calloto, “crops”, it is difficult
to rule out the possibility that the author intends us to read
celloto, “things, equipment,
wares”, which would make equally good sense. – For
this latter meaning of
cellto (reminiscent of
fr. “chose”, ital. “cosa” etc.), see
Payne Smith, Thes. syr. col. 2877, s.v., no. 4;
Brockelmann, Lex. syr. 524a, s.v., no. 7; add to
the references there Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bedjan] 414.7f. (< Juwainî, Târîkh-i
jahângushâ I.60.1f., where Juwainî has
jâmah-hâ, “fabrics”); perhaps
also ibid. 504.24. – The likelihood of the reading
celloto will be raised if we can assume that
Bar cEbroyo had before him some such passage as the
following: Ibn Hauqal 203.6-7, 11-12:
“In this sea [sc. Mediterranean] are small and large
islands and mountains, uninhabited and inhabited by Byzantines
(Rûm) and Muslims. The most thriving
(macmûr) in terms of Islam and the
population (nâs) is Sicily, which is the largest
of them, the most abundant in provisions (aktharhâ
cuddatan), the best defended ... [Cyprus and
Crete] were islands abounding in goods (khair), supplies
(miyar) and merchandise (tijâra) and there
was much import and export to and from them” (for further
loci similes, see A. Miquel, La géographie humaine du
monde musulman jusqu’au milieu de 11e siècle
[Paris, 1967-88] III.275 n.1).
[23] The
islands named in the above passages may be summarised as
follows. For comparison, I also give the Mediterranean islands
listed in Jacob of Edessa’s Hex., a list which is
repeated by Bar Kepha and Bar Shakko.
Jacob of Edessa, Hex. [Chabot] 100a
21-30. – Bar Kepha, Hex., Paris syr. 241, 172v a
15-23, Paris syr. 311, 46r a20-28, tr. Schlimme 572. –
Bar Shakko, Thes., Paris syr. 316, 173r 7-14, BL Add.
7193, 70v a27-b10; cf. Nau (1896) 313.
Cand.: Samos, Chios, Rhodes, Cyprus,
Sicily
Rad.: 5 large: Cyprus, Sardinia, Sicily,
Crete, Corsica [Cyrnus]
5 small: Rhodes, qwmnws, Samos, Euboea, Chios; and 252
others.
Asc.: 5 large: Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica,
Sicily, Crete
5 small: Rhodes, qwmws, Samos, Euboea, Chios; 250
unnamed islands.
Eth.: 5 large, smallest of which is
Cyprus; 5 small; and 252 others.
But.: Sicily, Samos, Chios, Rhodes,
Cyprus
Jacob of Edessa et al.: 5 large: Sardinia,
Corsica, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus
peninsulas: Peloponnese, Chersonese; and many others.
small: Rhodes, Cos, Chios, Samos, Euboea, Ithaca; [and many
others, Jacob].
[24] It
will be seen that the same five islands are named in
Cand. and But. The choice is somewhat surprising,
since Samos, Chios and Rhodes are not among the largest islands
in the Mediterranean and we see from Rad. and
Asc. that Bar cEbroyo knew this, if not when
he wrote Cand., at least by the time he wrote
But. While it is difficult to find a source in Syriac or
Arabic where all five of these are named as representative
islands in the Mediterranean, a passage where four of them
other than Chios (i.e. Cyprus, Samos, Rhodes, Sicily) are named
as the principal islands of the Mediterranean can be found in
Bîrûnî (Tafhîm 211.6-7; same
list thence in Qazwînî,
cAjâ’ib 105.5, tr. Ethé
215).
[25] The
lists of the islands in Rad. and Asc. are similar
to those in Jacob of Edessa, Bar Kepha and Bar Shakko.
A similar list is found in the
Ps.-Aristotelian De mundo, but the divergence of that
list from the list in Rad./Asc. is greater: De
mundo (Greek) 393a 12-15: large: Sicily, Sardinia, Cosica,
Crete, Euboea, Cyprus, Lesbos; smaller: Sporades and Cyclades;
“others with different names”. – Syriac
version [de Lagarde] 139.12-14 (cf. Ryssel [1880] 25 n.1):
Sicily, Euboea, Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Peloponnese,
Lesbos [’SBWS]. – Arabic version F [Brafman
(1985), text 87.1-3, tr. 176, comm. 219f.]: Sicily, Euboea,
Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Lesbos, Peloponnese,
Asâbûs. – Cf. also Causa causarum,
Laur. or. 298 (= F), 132r a9-13 (tr. K. Kayser 339):
“Cyprus, Sicily [SYLYQY’ cod. F], Crete,
Rhodes, Samos, Mytilene, Chios [KYWN F] and many others
small ones”; 134v a6-9 (tr. 344): “Sicily, Crete,
Rhodes, Cyprus etc.”
The
comparison with the list in Jacob of Edessa, in fact, allows us
to solve the mystery of the island whose name appears as
“QWMNWS” (
)
in Rad. and as “QWMWS” in Asc.
It is evidently a corruption of “Cos and Chios”
(QW W-KYWS,
).
The corruption seems to have begun early,
since “Cos and Chios” already appear written as one
word (QWWKYS) in the manuscript of Jacob of
Edessa’s Hexaemeron dated 837 A.D. and used in
Chabot’s facsimile edition of that work (Lyons, syr. 2),
while in the Leidensis (66 Gol., dated 1183 A.D.), too, the two
words are apparently written together (QWKYS sec.
Chabot’s apparatus, but read as “Suchis”,
which suggests QWWKYS, by J.P.N. Land,
“Aardrijkskundige fragmenten uit de Syrische literatuur
der zesde en zevende eeuw”, VMAW.L 3. R. 3 [1887]
164-193, here 176). It is particularly noteworthy that Bar
Kepha and Bar Shakko (though not Jacob of Edessa) in their
respective lists first tell us that there are “five
small” islands and then go on to give us a list which, if
“Cos” and “Chios” are counted
separately, contain six names. It is likely, in other words,
that Bar Kepha and Bar Shakko, too, like Bar cEbroyo
read the letters representing “Cos and Chios” in
their sources as one word. Of the manuscripts of the works of
these two accessible to me, the oldest (Bar Kepha, Paris syr.
311, copied ca. 1434 A.D.) has “Cos and Chios”
written together as one word (QWWKYS), although we find
them written as two words in later manuscripts (Bar Shakko:
Paris syr. 316, 1889 A.D.; BL Add. 7193, “recent”
sec. Rosen-Forshall; Bar Kepha: Paris 241, copied in 1508 A.D.
in Cyprus [!]; in the last named manuscript,
“Ithaca” is missing from the list along with the
peninsulas, while “and Chios” appears to be written
WB’YWS).
If this
supposition, “QWMNWS/QWMWS” <
“Cos and Chios”, is correct, the islands named in
Rad. and Asc. will be the same as those listed by
Jacob of Edessa, Bar Kepha and Bar Shakko, except for the
substitution of Chios for Ithaca, so that here again as in
But. and Cand. “Chios” turns out to
be an addition by Bar cEbroyo.
[26] The
reason for this peculiar interest on Bar
cEbroyo’s part in Chios is unclear. A possible
explanation may be sought in a passage of his Chron.
(ed. Bedjan, 8.7-8) where Bar cEbroyo names
“Cyprus, Chios, Sicily and twenty others islands”
among the lands allotted to the sons of Ham. The connection of
this passage of Chron. to the geographical accounts as
found in Cand. etc. may seem rather distant at first,
but the division of the world among the sons of Noah is in fact
mentioned at an earlier point in Cand. and we find
furthermore that a significant number of the place-names
mentioned at Chron. [Bedjan] 7.26-8.12 reappear in the
geographical accounts in Cand. etc., often in the forms
in which they are found there.
viz. Arabia, Hyrcania, Babel, Persia
(PRS), Inner India (hendu gawwoyto), Sheba, Egypt
(mesrin), Libya, Africa
(’FRYQY), Cyprus, Chios, Sicily, Alans, Turks,
Spaniards, Gadeira. – Chios is mentioned once in
Aristotle’s Meteorologica, a work with which the
relevant parts of Cand. and But. are closely
connected (342 b36, in the name of the mathematician
Hippocrates of Chios, as opposed to the more famous physician
of Cos). The name is preserved in the Syriac version of
Nicolaus Damascenus’ Compendium of Aristotelian
Philosophy (ms. Cantab. Gg. 2.14, fol. 332v [= p. 12] 13f.:
ippôqratis d-men KYS T’S’LY’, w-law
haw osyo d-men QW) and thence at Cand. [Bakos]
121.14 (ippôqratis d-men KYS), but this can hardly
be the reason why Bar cEbroyo includes Chios among
the principal islands of the Mediterranean.
[27] In
Rad. and Asc. Bar cEbroyo gives us the
circumferences of the five larger islands, information which is
not given in Jacob of Edessa et al. As in the case of the
dimensions of the different seas given in these same works (see
paragraph [32] below), the values given here
are the same as those given in Battânî’s
Zîj, except that the circumferences of Cyprus and
Corsica (Cyrnus) have been reversed (Cyprus: 350 miles,
Corsica: 250 miles, in Battânî), a reversal which
is probably due to misreading of the names of these two islands
in Arabic (QBRS, QRNS).
Battânî’s Zîj (or a related
work) may also be the source for the “252 other
islands” which Bar cEbroyo mentions in
Rad. and Eth. (“250” in Asc.),
since Battânî tells us there that there are
“162” islands in the Mediterranean
(Zîj 27.4), while the 12th c. Latin translation of
the Zîj by Plato Tiburtinus talks of
“262” islands.
Nallino (1899-1907) I.18 n.9.
It will be remembered, of course,
that Bar cEbroyo mentions ten of the islands by
name, so that his total will also be “262”.
2. Outer Ocean
[28] Cand.
[Bakos 155.5-157.11, Gottheil 47.12-49.14, Çiçek
111.29-113.29]: The Sea Oceanus, which is outside the Herculean
Pillars, with its flow (redyo) proceeding southwards,
passes by the lands of the Western Arabs and by the Silver
Mountain and the Moon Mountains,
Of the two names given here, the
“Silver Mountain” (given here in Cand.,
Asc., Eth. and But.) is, so to speak, the
Aristotelian name (Mete. 350b 14: tò
arguroûn kaloúmenon óros), while the
other, the “Mountain(s) of the Moon” (<
selēnēs óros; in Cand.,
Rad. and Asc., but not in Eth. and
But.) is the Ptolemaic name (Geog. IV.8.3, 6) and
the one usually encountered in Islamic geographical literature,
as well as in Jacob of Edessa (Hex. 113b 36f.).
from whose caves the waters
of the River Nile spring (nobcin), and by the
lands of the Abyssinians and the lands of the Nubians, i.e. the
whole land of the Cushites. At the end (sawfo) of this
land there extends from it a certain small gulf
(
cubbo) towards the north opposite Egypt
(mesrin), which is called the Sea
of Reed (yammo d-suf), as being the end and extremity
(sawfo w-soko) of the great sea. The sons of Israel
crossed it on foot and in it the Pharaoh was drowned. Because
of the great number of mountains and rocks in this gulf ships
are unable to sail through it except during the day and along
the shores. That great sea from which this gulf proceeds is
called the Red Sea and this [sea], as it flows towards the
east, passes by the lands of Sheba and Saba and the whole land
which is simply called the South (taymno) and where the
trees of frankincense are.
Bar cEbroyo will have located
“Sheba and Saba” in Yemen or more generally in the
southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. See Bar
cEbroyo, Horr. in Ps. 72:10 (ed. de Lagarde,
Praetermissorum libri duo [Göttingen, 1879] 182.16,
tr. J.L. Siegel [diss. Chicago, 1928] 144), where
“Saba” is glossed as “the South/Yemen”
(taymno). At Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bedjan] 155.17, “the South/Yemen and the land of Sheba
and of Saba” are mentioned among the lands allotted by
Caliph al-Mutawakkil to his son Muhammad
al-Muntasir in 235 A.H., where
Tabarî for example, has “Yemen, cAkk,
Hadramaut, al-Yamâma, al-Bahrain
...” (Tabarî, III.1395, see
partial tr. J.L. Kraemer, The History of al-Tabarī, vol. 34 [Albany, 1989] 96 with the
parallel passages cited there in 95f. n. 326). – In the
map accompanying Cand., however, “Sheba and
Saba” is found in the northeastern part of the Arabian
peninsula, while the southernmost part of the peninsula is
taken up by “Inner Yemen” (taymno gawwoyo).
This is probably to be explained by the fact that
Bîrûnî, Tafhîm 143.15 places
“Saba’” in the second clime, while placing
“the parts of Yemen south of Sanca”, “such as Dhofar,
Hadramaut and Aden”, in the first
clime (Tafhîm 143.10f.).
At the extremity of this sea
called the Red, it forms a great gulf towards the north called
the Sea of Fârs. On the western side of this sea is the
city called Basra and the whole land of
Babel and Seleucia and Ctesiphon. On its northern side are all
the lands of the Persians and on its eastern side are the lands
of the Indians. The Universal Sea which is outside this gulf,
as it flows further towards the east, passes by the lands of
the Indians and at their extremity forms a gulf towards the
north called the Sea of the Indians. To the west of this sea
are the lands of the Indians, to its east are the lands of the
Tibetans and after them the lands of the Chinese, and to its
north are the lands of the Huns or the Turks (
turqis), who are the Mongols, that is to say,
their first land from which they proceeded
(nfaq(w)).
This is reminiscent of the false etymology
that derives the name “Turk” from the Arabic
taraka, “to leave”.
The Universal Sea which is outside this
gulf, flowing further towards the east, passes by the famous
islands of the Indians [of] which [one] is called
Sarandîb and another Qumair,
as well as the rest of the
islands and mountains from which are brought and conveyed those
hot, choice and aromatic spices (sammonê), clove
(QRNPWL, arab. qaranful), aloe
(’WLNGWG, arab. alanjûj), pepper
(PLPL’), camphor (Q’PPWR, arab.
kâfûr) etc., as well as precious stones,
corundum (yaqqundo) etc. In the same way, extending from
the east towards the north, it passes by the lands of the
Tibetans and the Chinese, by the lands of the Huns, which I
have mentioned, by the lands of the Iberians, and by many lands
that are desolate, and impassable mountains. It passes also by
the great black mountain in the north and the plains of the
Qipchaqs and by the land of the Alans. There it forms a gulf
from the north to the south, which is called Warang in the
language of that place. In the same way, extending from the
north towards the west, it passes by the land of the Scythians,
by the cities of the Bulgars, by the whole of land of the
Franks (frangiya) and by the land of Andalus of the
Arabs (
tayyoyê) which now
in our day the Franks have conquered. It ends by the Herculean
Pillars, whence it began.
Rad. [Istanbul 35.18-37.6, Gottheil
53.1-15]: ... Oceanus, which, beginning at the islands of the
Blessed and that (island) in the west called Gadeira, flows
outside the whole earth towards the south and passes by the
Mountains of the Moon, from which the Nile springs. It
encircles the Abyssinians and the Nubians and forms the Sea of
the Berbers, whose length is 500 miles and breadth at its
extremity 100 miles. It flows further and forms the Red Sea,
which thins out and extends for 400 miles in length; the
breadth of its extremity, which is the Sea of Reed where Israel
crossed, is 200 miles. It flows further, encircles the Desert
of Pharan,
“Madbro d-foron”: mentioned as
the place at the end of the Red Sea (“Arabian
Gulf”) by Jacob of Edessa, Hex. 101b 19f., Bar
Kepha, Hex. Paris syr. 241, 172v a29, and Bar Shakko,
Thes. Paris syr. 316, 174r 4. Curiously replaced by the
“Desert of the Himyarites” and the
“Mountain of Pharan” in Asc.,
concerning the latter of which it may be noted that the
“Desert of Pharan” and “Mount Sinai”
are found written closely together on the maps accompanying
Cand.
and forms the Sea of the Elamites –
where the Euphrates and the Tigris empty (their waters) –
whose length is 1,400 miles and breadth 500 miles. It flows
further, encircles the whole of Fârs and India and forms
the Sea of India, whose length is 1,600 miles. In it are 1,370
islands, one of which is called Tirani
or Sarandîb. It is very large. For its circumference is
1,300 miles. In it are tall mountains and many rivers and from
it are brought the red and blue (sosgawno) corundums
[i.e. ruby and sapphire]. It flows further and encircles the
East and forms the Sea of the Chinese. It flows further and
encircles the North; it passes by the desolate mountains of the
Huns, and the lands of Bulgars, Scythians and Alans, and forms
the Galatian Sea in which are the nineteen islands of
Britain.
Earlier Islamic geographers talk of the
“twelve” islands of Britain (Battânî
26.29, Ibn Rusta 85.13f.,
Hudûd
al-câlam, tr. Minorsky 59, §4.24),
while Abû al-Fidâ’ 187.12 has
“eleven”.
It encircles the land of the Franks
(frangiya) and joins the Islands of the Blessed and
Gadeira where it began.
Asc. [Nau 134.4-16; on the Ocean]: This
[Ocean] extends northwards and encircles Spain. It passes in
the northwest by the land of the Franks (frangiya). It
stretches to the north outside the Scythians. It reaches the
northeast and confines the land of the Inner Turks (turqis
gawwoyê), who are the Gog and Magog.
The Biblical “Gog and Magog”
(Ezech 38:2, also “Magog, son of Japhet” Gen.
10:2), who appear as “Yâjûj
wa-Mâjûj” in the Koran (XVIII.93-98, XXI.96)
and play a significant role in Jewish, Christian and Muslim
eschatology, were generally identified with the primitive
peoples in the north, especially with the Turks and, after
their appearance on the scene, Mongols (on the location of Gog
and Magog among Koranic commentators and Islamic geographers
and historians, see EI2 XI.232b, s.v.
“Yādjūdj wa-Mādjūdj” [van
Donzel-Ott]; on their association with the Mongols, J.A. Boyle,
“Alexander and the Mongols”, CAsJ 24 [1980] 18-35;
cf. n. 86, on “Gate of Iron”, below). At
Cand. 99.2f. Bar cEbroyo follows
Bîrûnî in locating the “land of the
Huns and those enclosed (
hbishoyê) Gog” at the eastern end of
the fifth clime (< Tafhîm 144.14f. “land
of the eastern Turks and the walled-in Gog
[yâjûj al-musawwarîn]). – For
further references to Gog and Magog in Bar cEbroyo,
see Chron. [Bedjan] 30.9, where Holophernes is said to
be “a Magogian, i.e. a Turk” (< Michael.
Chron. 64a 30f., tr. I.103); Chron. 217.15, where
a group of “Huns” called
“Guzzoyê” (Ghuzz, Oghuz), who
“went forth with the emirs of the Seljuks”, are
said to be children of Magog b. Japheth b. Noah (< Michael,
Chron. 566a 31, tr. III.149, where, however, Michael
talks simply of “Turks” instead of
“Huns” etc.); Horr. in Ezech. 38:2 (ed.
Gugenheimer [1894] 27.10-13; tr. Dean [Diss. 1930] 58), where
“Gog and Magog” is glossed as “the Scythians,
the sons of Japheth” (this identification with the
Scythians goes back at least to Josephus, Antiquitates
judaicae I.6.1 [123], cf. K. Czeglédy, “The
Syriac Legend concerning Alexander the Great” AOH 7
[1957] 231-249, here 233-237); and But. Politica I.iii.6
(“Gugoyê” in the northeast; mentioned
along with “Arabs” in the southwest). The
continuator of Bar cEbroyo’s Chron.,
though probably not Bar cEbroyo himself, refers
several times to the Ilkhanids as the “House of
Magog” (ed. Bedjan, 555.7, 560.20, 579.23, 585.2, 586.9;
the passage at 555.7, though relating to events just before Bar
cEbroyo’s death, is likely to stems from the
pen of the continuator).
It is thought
to pass behind the impassable mountains which have been
mentioned [cf. 133.23-134.1]. It joins the eastern sea of the
Manzoyê,
“Manzoyê”: Nau’s
anachronistic translation of the word as “Manchus”
(cf. Payne Smith, Thes. syr. col. 2171) is
naturally to be rejected. The word also occurs at Bar
cEbroyo, Chron. [Bedjan] 513.24 and
corresponds there to the Arabic/Persian
“manzî” used in Juwainî’s
Târîkh-i jahângushâ (ed.
Qazwini, I.211.15, III.72.1), apparently as an alternative form
of “mâchîn/mâjîn” (on
which, see EI2 IX.617, s.v. “al-Sîn, 1.” [Bosworth]; cf. Boyle [1958]
I.10 n. 17: “Māchīn, i.e. Southern China,
called also Manzī, the Manji of Marco Polo”).
i.e. the Chinese. It passes in the southeast
by the whole of Inner India,
As will be clear from the context, as well
as the map accompanying Cand., Bar
cEbroyo’s “Inner India” is the
eastern parts of India (almost Indochina), rather than Ethiopia
as is sometimes the case in Syriac (see Payne Smith,
Thes. syr. col. 1026f. s.vv. hendu,
hendwoye; Michael, Chron. tr. I.258 with n.2).
– At Bar cEbroyo, Chron. [Bedjan]
8.3f., 5, India is divided into four, the
“northern” included among the inheritance of Shem
and the “inner, outer and southern” included in
those of Ham (< Michael, Chron. 8a 34, 9b 3, tr.
I.18; “outer” not in Michael).
and then extends to the south
along Inner Arabia and the Desert of the Himyarites, outside of
the Mountain of Pharan. It passes by Egypt (iguptos) and the lands of the Berbers and the
Cushites and the whole of Africa. In the proximity of the
Silver Moutain, which is also called the Moon [Mountain], it
becomes imperceptible,
Cf. Tûsî,
Tadhkira [Ragep] 247.19-23.
but it is thought to unite after
it with the Western Sea, from which it began and with which it
ends.
Asc. [Nau 135.16-136.11; on seas
projecting into the Habitable World]: From the southern sea
four tongues enter into the Habitable World. The first is the
Sea of the Berbers, which is near the west; its length is 500
miles and the breadth of its extremity 100 miles. The second is
the Red Sea, which thins out and extends 400 miles in length
and the breadth of whose extremity, which is the Sea of Reed,
is 200 miles. The third is the Sea of the Elamites, into which
the Euphrates and the Tigris pour their waters. Its length is
400 miles and its breadth 500 miles. The fourth is the Sea of
the Indians, whose length is 1,600 miles. In it are 1,370
islands, the best-known of which is Tirani, called Sarandîb in the language of
that place. Its circumference is 1,300 miles and in it are tall
mountains, from which many rivers flow. From it are brought the
red corundum [ruby] and other precious stones. From the eastern
sea there proceed many tongues whose sizes and properties have
not been charted in books. From the northern sea that
well-known tongue called the Galatian proceeds. In it are the
nineteen islands of Britain, the best-known of which is Thule,
the freezing island.
Eth. [Bedjan 453.3-10, 453.18-454.2,
Çiçek 236a 13-23]: The Universal Sea, beginning
in the west where the Isles of the Blessed are, encircles the
Silver Mountain, from which the river Nile descends and which
is in the southwest. It passes outside the Cushites and the
lands of Sheba and Saba to the south. Reaching the southeast,
it confines India, and in the east the Chinese, in the
northeast the land of Gog and Magog, in the north the
Scythians, and in the northwest the Franks and Spaniards, and
thus ends where it began. … There are other seas besides
this one, the Sea of Pontus and Hyrcania in the north [cf.
para. [14] above], the Sea of Reed in the
south, and that of the Elamites, where there is the reversal of
the Euripian waters (hfikut mayyo ’WRYPY’);
when those [waters] flow (goyhin)
they cause the ships to ascend, and when they ebb
(toybin) they cause them to return.
The to-and-fro of the waters in the Euripus
(as a proper noun, properly the strait between Euboea and the
Greek mainland) is mentioned by Bar cEbroyo in
Cand. (“Euripus [’WRYPWS]”, ed.
Bakos 153.6, 11, both times in the singular and so probably to
be taken as a proper noun; cf. Bakoš’s notes ad
loc.) and But. (Book of Mineralogy, V.iii.3,
“euripus” once in plural and once in singular, both
times with initial hê rather than olaf as
in Cand. and Eth.). The immediate source used by
Bar cEbroyo for the information on the
Euripus/euripi there may well be a scholion based mainly on
Olympiodorus’ commentary on Aristotle’s
Meteorologica, which is now lost but was still present
in cEbroyo’s copy of the Syriac version of
Nicolaus Damascenus (cf. Olymp. in Mete. [Stüve]
128.35-129.4, 134.17-19; on Nicolaus, cf. n. 45 above; on the
relationship between Nicolaus, Olympiodorus and Bar
cEbroyo, see Takahashi [2002a], id. [2002b]
219-228). In But., though not in Cand., Bar
cEbroyo goes on, after talking about the
Euripus/euripi, to mention the “ebb and flow”
(tawbo w-mele’o) of the waters in the “Sea
of Elam and of India”. Here in Eth. Bar
cEbroyo is talking about the “Elamite
Sea” (our Arabian/Persian Gulf), but in a conflation, as
it were, of the two passages in But. applies the
adjective “Euripian” to the phenomenon there.
But. Min. V.i.3: Outside the
Stelae the Atlantic flows to the southwest and passes by
the Silver Mountain, from which the Nile rises. As it flows
eastwards, it encircles the land of the Berbers and the
Cushites. In Arabia it forms the gulf of the Red Sea. This
(gulf) in fact extends like a thin tongue into Egypt and forms
the Sea of Reed. Then, it passes by the land of Sheba and Saba
and forms the Sea of Elam, and then the Sea of India. In the
southeast it passes by Inner India. It (then) encircles the
East and passes by the Chinese. In the northeast it passes by
the land of Gog and Magog. In the north [it passes] by the land
of the Turks (turqis) and the desolate lands and
impassable mountains and forms the Sea of Britain, in which is
the island of Thule. Then, it passes by the Iberians, Alans,
Scythians and Bulgars. In the northwest it passes by
Italy
Italy, which does not face the outer Ocean
and which had not been mentioned in this context in Bar
cEbroyo’s earlier works, is out of place here,
but on a schematic map of the seas, where Europe is usually
drawn as a thin wedge between the Mediterranean and the outer
Ocean, Italy or its equivalent in Bar
cEbroyo’s Vorlage (“Rûm”?)
will not have been very far from the Ocean. Cf.
Hudûd al-câlam, tr.
Minorsky 52, §2.2, where the Western Ocean is said to pass
by the extreme limit of “Rûm”.
and the whole land of the Franks. In the west
[it passes] by Spain. It ends where it began, by the
Stelae.
[29] The
passage of Cand. above has a number of elements which
are specifically Syriac, or at least Biblical, such as the the
combination “Sheba and Saba”,
Cf. Psalm 72:10. The combination is also
found in the passages of Eth. (ed. Bedjan, 453.6) and
But. quoted above, as well as in the list of localities
in the second clime at Cand. 97.1 (where it corresponds
to Bîrûnî, Tafhîm 143.15,
Saba’).
and the
explanation attributing the name “Sea of Reed”
(yammo d-suf) to its location at the extremity
(sawfo) of the great sea, an explanation that is found
in Syriac exegetical works and is also given by Bar
cEbroyo in his Horr.
See, e.g., Ishocdad, in Exod.
15:4 (ed. C. van den Eynde, Commentaire
d’Išocdad de Merv sur l’Ancien
Testament, II. Exode-Deutéronome, textus [Louvain,
1958] 29.3), where this is one of several explanations of the
name given. – For the explanation in Horr., see
ed. Sprengling-Graham (1931) 120.19-23 (in Exod. 15:4; whence,
as often, the explanation has found its way into the definition
of “yammo d-suf” in the lexicon of G.
Karmsedinoyo cited at Payne Smith, Thes. syr.
col. 2577). – See further: Causa causarum, Laur.
or. 298, 132r b26-28 (tr. Kayser 339; = Bodl. Laud. 123, 292r,
cited in Payne Smith, Thes. syr. col. cit.);
Syriac recension of the Physiologus, ed. K. Ahrens,
Buch der Naturgegenstände (Kiel, 1892) 86 fin.,
syr. 48.12-14 (Similarities between certain passages of Bar
cEbroyo’s geography and the apparently
interpolated passage on geography in the Buch der
Naturgegenstände have been noted by Ahrens [footnotes
ad loc.], as well as by Bakoš in his edition of
Cand. [154 nn.1-2, 166 n.1]).
[30] More
prominent, however, are the similarities with Arabic works on
geography. It is noteworthy, for example, that Bar
cEbroyo mentions both the “crossing” by
the “sons of Israel” and the “drowning of the
Pharaoh” in connection with the Sea of Reed. The story,
of course, is both Biblical (Exod. 14-15 etc.) and Koranic
(X.90 etc.). The first point is duly mentioned by Jacob of
Edessa and other Syriac authors at the relevant place. The
latter point, the drowning of the Pharaoh, is not mentioned by
them, but is frequently mentioned by Islamic geographers of the
Balkhi school.
See Jacob of Edessa, Hex. 101b 9-12
(in connection with the “gulf of Arabia”, = our Red
Sea), 101b 19-21 (Desert of Pharan); Bar Kepha, Hex.
Paris syr. 241, 172v b26f., Paris syr. 311, 46r b18-20, tr.
Schlimme 573; Bar Shakko, Thes., Paris syr. 316, 174r
2f., BL Add. 7193, 70r b9-11 (both with “gulf of
Arabia”); also the Syriac lexica cited at Payne Smith,
Thes. syr. col. 1601, 2577; and Causa
causarum, Laur. or. 298, 132r b23f. (tr. Kayser 339;
“Red Sea”). – Istakhrî [de Goeje] 31.1, [Hînî] 30.1; Ibn Hauqal, 46.9f.; Muqaddasî, 11.16;
Yâqût, IV.159.6 (s.v. al-Qulzum), I.811.21f.
(s.v. Târân); Qazwînî,
cAjâ’ib 119.4.
Another point of contact with these
geographers is the mention of the difficulty of navigation in
(our) Red Sea.
Cf. Istakhrî
[de Goeje] 30.2-4, [Hînî]
29.16-18; Ibn Hauqal, 44.22-46.1;
Yâqût, IV.159.23-160.2. – The phrase
“along the shores” is not found in these works, but
cf. Bîrûnî, Tafhîm 121.7f.:
wa-innamâ yuslak bi-l-qurb min sâhilihi (with reference, however, to the Ocean
rather than the Red Sea).
[31]
Among the elements the passage of Cand. above shares
with Bîrûnî’s Tafhîm, we
might call attention here to such items as the mention of
Qumair, along with the list of spices produced in the southern
islands,
Corundum (yâqût) and
camphor (kâfûr) are mentioned in the Arabic
Tafhîm (ed. Wright, 211.13-15; similarly in the
passage copied thence at Yâqût,
Mucjam I.21.12f.). The Persian version of the
Tafhîm (ed. Humâ’î 168.7-9) also
names clove (qaranful) and aloe-wood
(
cûd).
the “lands that are desolate and
impassable mountains” (Cand. 157.5),
This phrase is repeated in much the same
form in But. (“desolate lands and impassable
mountains”) and in an abbreviated form in Rad.
37.2-3 and Asc. 134.8 (cf. also Asc. 133.23f.).
It goes back to Bîrûnî, Tafhîm
121.11-12: ardûna
wa-jibâl majhûla khariba ghair maslûka
(“unknown, desolate and impassable lands and
mountains”; in the East, between the Ocean and the land
of the Turks).
and
the use of the name gulf of “Warang” for the
Baltic.
Cf. Bîrûnî,
Tafhîm 121.9-10 (pers. 166.18); id.,
Tahdîd 142.12-13;
Kharaqî [Nallino (1899-1907)] I.174.14-16 (who follows
the wording of Bîrûnî, Tafhîm,
but then applies the dimensions given elsewhere for the Maeotis
[300 x 100 miles] to this sea); Qazwînî,
Âthâr 416.3-7 (also the map on p. 8);
Tûsî, Tadhkira
[Ragep] 249.2, with Ragep’s comm. ad loc.; id.,
Mucînîya III.1, facsimile ed.
Dânishpazhûh 60.14 (ubi bahr FRNK cod.); Qutb
al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî, Nihâyat
al-idrâk, partial tr. Wiedemann (1912) 30;
Dimashqî, 23.11, 139.17f., 146.7 (tr. 21, 182, 193);
Abû al-Fidâ’, 26.14, 35.9-12 (who tells us
that Bîrûnî and Tûsî’s Tadhkira are the
only authorities to mention this sea). –
“Warang” is also mentioned at Cand. 101.7
among the tribes in the 7th clime (< Tafhîm
145.11; cf. Dimashqî, 22.2, tr. 19).
[32]
Prominent among the newly-added information in Rad. (and
Asc.) are the dimensions of the different seas. As in
the case of the circumferences of the Mediterranean islands
(see para. [27] above), the values given
here agree closely with those given by Battânî (and
Ibn Rusta, Kharaqî).
See the comparative table of the values
given by Battânî, Ibn Rusta, Kharaqî and
Jacob of Edessa in Nallino’s commentary on
Battânî (I.167-169), where references are also made
to the values in Bar cEbroyo’s Asc.
– The values for the dimensions of the seas are not given
in Tûsî’s
Tadhkira (at least not in the later recension published
by Ragep), the model of Asc., but they are given in
Tûsî’s earlier Persian
version of the same work, the Risâla-i
mucînîya, as well as in a number of
works related to the Tadhkira, namely Qutb al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî’s
Nihâyat al-idrâk (partial tr. Wiedemann
[1912] 27-31), the same Shîrâzî’s
al-Tuhfa al-shâhîya
and Qâdîzâda’s
commentary on the Tadhkira (Nallino [1899-1907] I.176).
The values in the Mucînîya etc.,
though given in parasangs (farsang) rather than miles
are usually in agreement, allowing for approximations in the
conversion and occasional errors in transmission, with those in
Battânî.
Although similar values are also
given by Jacob of Edessa, some of the values given by Bar
cEbroyo are not found in Jacob,
viz. the length and breadth of Gulf of Aden,
length of the Sea/Gulf of India (also the circumferences of the
islands in the Mediterranean).
and, furthermore,
where Jacob and Battânî differ from each other, Bar
cEbroyo is usually in agreement with the
latter.
viz. the breadth of the Arabian/Persian Gulf
(500 miles Bar cEbroyo: 700 Jacob), breadth of the
Mediterranean (800 Bar cEbroyo: 400 Jacob), number
of islands in the Sea/Gulf of India (1,370 Bar
cEbroyo: 1,378 Jacob). Nallino (I.168 n.3) errs when
he tells us that Bar cEbroyo follows Jacob in giving
the maximum breadth of the Red Sea as 400 miles (against
Battânî’s 700 miles), since the value of 400
miles in Bar cEbroyo is that for the length and not
the maximum breadth. This value of “400 miles”
given by Bar cEbroyo both in Rad. and in
Asc. is likely to be due to misreading on Bar
cEbroyo’s part or scribal error in his
Vorlage, since Jacob and Battânî agree in
giving the length of the Red Sea as 1,400 miles (so also Bar
Kepha and Mascûdî, Murûj
al-dhahab, ed. Barbier de Meynard-Pavet de
Courteille-Pellat [Beirut, 1965-1979], para. 250).
[33]
Battânî’s Zîj and related works
also help us account for the mention of the “Isles of the
Blessed” and “Gadeira” as places where the
Ocean begins,
See Battânî 26.17f.
(jazâ’ir al-sucadâ’,
ghadîra).
and, in part at least, for the use of the name
“Sea of Berbers” for the Gulf of Aden.
The Gulf of Aden is in fact the entrance to
the Red Sea, but is often counted by Islamic geographers as a
separate branch of the Indian Ocean. The usual name in Arabic
is al-khalîj al-barbarî derived from
Barbarâ/Berbera on its shore, but the name
bahr al-barbar is found in
Bîrûnî, Tafhîm 122.9 (pers.
168.1 daryâ-i barbar) and the name is also
mentioned in such a way as to suggest a connection with the
Berbers at Battânî 26.5 (wa-lahu khalîj
bi-ard al-habash
yamuddu ilâ nâhiyat
al-barbar, yusammâ al-khalîj al-barbarî;
cf. Nallino’s footnote ad loc.). The Causa
causarum calls this gulf the “Inlet of Cush”
(maclono d-kush, Laur. or. 298, 131v b14, tr.
Kayser 338).
They
help us, furthermore, to solve the mystery surrounding the
island of “Tirani” mentioned
in Rad. and Asc. (
TYR’NY;
TYRN’NY Rad. cod. Paris syr. 216;
corruption of “Taprobane”, arabicè
TBRB’NY),
Bar cEbroyo evidently found no
cause to make a connection between this island and the place he
knew from another source and mentions in the form
T’PWRBNY at Rad.
[Istanbul] 16.9. The source mentioned by Bar cEbroyo
there is Ptolemy’s Handy Tables (called ktobo
d-PRKYRWS at Rad. 16.6f.). His immediate source is
probably Severus Sebokht, since these two words, along with
“Geographicon” (G’WGR’PYQWN)
mentioned by Bar cEbroyo at Rad. 17.2, are
also found in close proximity of one another in Severus’
Treatise on the Constellations in forms similar to these
(
T’PRWBNY, PRWKYRWS,
G’WGRWPYQWN; see F. Nau, “Le traité
sur les «Constellations» écrit, en 661, par
Sévère Sébokt évêque de
Qennesrin”, ROC 27 [1930] 327-410, 28 [1931] 85-100, here
vol. 27, p. 407; cf. id. “La cosmographie au VIIe
siècle chez les Syriens”, ROC 15 [1910] 225-254,
here 237.1, 240.11f.). – Bar cEbroyo himself
had called Ptolemy’s Geography “ktobo
d-ZWGRPY’” (sic with zain) at
Cand. 103.12, a form which suggests an Arabic Vorlage
(jughrâfiyâ). – The Handy
Tables appears elsewhere in Syriac under the name
“ktobo <d->qonune” (Sergius of
Rishcaino, apud Sachau, Inedita syriaca
[Vienna, 1870] 225.17).
and to explain
the “red and blue corundum” (yaqqundo summoqo
w-sosgawno) given as the products of that island in
Rad.
Battânî 26.13f.: ...
tabrubânî wa-hiya
sarandîb, yuhît bihâ thalâthat âlâf
mîl, muqâbil al-hind min nâhiyat al-mashriq, wa-fîhâ jibâl
cizâm wa-anhâr
kathîra, minhâ yukhraju al-yâqût
al-ahmar wa-laun
al-samâ’ (≈ Ibn Rusta 84.13f. et
Kharaqî [Nallino] I.174.1f.: wa-hiya
sarandîb om. Ibn Rusta || muqâbil al-hind
min nâhiyat al-mashriq om. Ibn
Rusta et Kharaqî). – The alteration/corruption of
“3,000” miles to “1,300” miles in Bar
cEbroyo may be due to the influence of the
“1,370 islands” mentioned in the preceding line at
Battânî 26.12. – The colour referred to as
“sosgawno” in Syriac is difficult to
determine (“color caeruleus, vel forte coccineus”
Payne Smith, Thes. syr. 2682; “purpureus”
Brockelmann, Lex. syr. 487a), but Bar cEbroyo
himself explains the word as “blue” (zarqo)
at Horr. in Exod. 25:5 (ed. Sprengling-Graham,
134.29-30), so that it will correspond here to
Battânî’s laun al-samâ’
(“sky colour”, “sky blue”). – In
Arabic the term “yâqût” is
applied to various corundums, such as ruby, emerald and
sapphire, whereby “yâqût” without
further qualification will often be “ruby”, the
corundum par excellence (see, e.g., Pseudo-Ariostotle, K.
al-ahjâr, ed. J. Ruska, Das
Steinbuch des Aristoteles [Heidelberg, 1912] 99f., tr.
135f.; al-Tamîmî, K. al-murshid, partial ed.
J. Schönfeld, Über die Steine. Das 14. Kapitel aus
dem “Kitāb al-Muršid” des
Muhammad ibn Ahmad at-Tamīmī [Freiburg, 1976] 39,
with comm. on p. 143; A. Siggel, Arabisch-Deutsches
Wörterbuch der Stoffe [Berlin, 1950] 89;
EI2 XI.262, s.v. “Yākūt” [al-Qaddumi]).
[34] One
important alteration Bar cEbroyo makes between
Cand. on the one hand and Rad./Asc. on the
other is in the sea to which name “Red Sea”
(yammo summoqo) is applied. In Jacob of Edessa, as well
as in Bar Kepha and Bar Shakko,
Jacob of Edessa, Hex. [Chabot] 101b
2-102b 4); Bar Kepha, Hex., Paris 311, 46r a5-6, b6-33,
tr. Schlimme 571, 573; and Bar Shakko, Thes., Paris 316,
173v 11-174r 11, BL Add. 7193, 71r a15-v a6.
“the Erythrian, or
Red, Sea” is what we call today the Indian Ocean, from
which two gulfs called by them the “Arabian” and
“Elamitic or Persian” (i.e. respectively, our Red
Sea and Arabian/Persian Gulf) branch off. With Bar
cEbroyo, too, this is still the case in
Cand., where the “Sea of Reed”
(corresponding there to our Red Sea) and the “Sea of
Fârs” are said to branch off from the “Red
Sea”.
We find the same system, placing the
“Sea of Reed” and the “Sea of Elam” on
the same level as branches of the “Oceanus” (no
mention, however, of the “Red Sea”) at Bar
cEbroyo, Horr. in Gen. 1:9 (ed.
Sprengling-Graham 10.22).
In his later works, Rad., Asc.
and But., however, the “Red Sea” is placed
on the same level as the sea of the “Berbers”,
“Elamites” and “Indians” and
corresponds to our Red Sea, usually called
“bahr al-qulzum” by
the Arabs (but “al-bahr
al-ahmar”, Tûsî, Tadhkira 249.1).
Our Red Sea is also called by that name
(yammo d-summoqo) in the Causa causarum (Laur.
or. 298, 132r b 23, tr. Kayser 339). – In the De
mundo, the “eruthrá
thálassa” of the Greek (393b 4) is rendered by
“
cubbo haw d-metqrê d-suf”
in the Syriac version (140.8-9; the Arabic versions of the
De mundo all have the “Sea of al-Qulzum”,
Brafman 88.13, 125.14, 143.3f.).
[35]
Among other alterations, we may note the tendency to avoid
Arabic place-names and to “classicise” or
“Syriacise” these names. In Cand., what is
known today as the “Arabian/Persian Gulf”, for
example, was called the “Sea of Fârs”
We do, however, have the “Sea of
Elamites, i.e. of the Persians (forsoyê)” in
the map accompanying Cand. – Cf. Jacob of Edessa,
Hex. 101b 29f.:
cubbo haw
d-cilimoyê awkit d-forsoyê;
similarly Bar Kepha, Hex., Paris syr. 241, 173r a4-7,
syr. 311, 46r b27f. (tr. Schlimme 573); Bar Shakko,
Thes., Paris syr. 316, 174r 6f., BL Add. 7193, 71r
b20-23.
; this
is altered to the “Sea of the Elamites” in
Rad. (36.10), Asc. (135.21, also 138.15) and
Eth. (453.20), and to the “Sea of Elam” in
But. Another example will be the alteration of
“al-Andalus” to “Hispania” and of
“Sea of Warang” to the “Galatian
Sea/Gulf”, while the alteration of “Mesrin” (arab. misr) to “Iguptos” might also be included in this category,
even if “Mesrin” is a good
Syriac word.
[36] In
most of these instances of
“classicisation/Syriacisation” we probably need not
look for a particular source. For one such alteration, however,
we can find a definite source in the De mundo (syr.
140.15, gr. 393b 9), namely for the alteration of the
“Sea of Warang” to the “Galatian
Sea/Gulf”, in which are the Britannic islands of Albion
and Ierne according to De mundo, “the 19 islands
of Britain” according to Rad. and “the 19
islands of Britain, the best-known of which is Thule”
according to Asc. This is then altered further to the
“Sea of Britain, in which is the island of Thule”
in But. – The identification of the Varangian
(Baltic) Sea with the Galatian Sea (Bay of Biscay/North Sea)
will have been caused by the general uncertainty of Islamic
geographers over these northern regions, and more particularly
by the rarity of references among them to the Varangian
Sea
See n. 65 above.
and by the fact that Thule is sometimes said
to be located near (or even “in”)
So Battânî, Zîj
25.16: jazîrat thûlî allatî fî
britânîya.
Britain but is
sometimes associated with the northern sea corresponding to the
Baltic.
See, e.g.,
Hudûd al-câlam, tr. 59,
§4.25, with comm. p. 181 (on §3.8); Miquel [1967-88]
III.240.
A further contributing factor to the eastward
displacement of Britain may be the coupling of Britain with
“Iberia” at De mundo syr. 140.20 (< gr.
393b 17), where the latter will have been understood to mean
“Georgia” rather than “Spain” by Bar
cEbroyo.
Cf. para. [] below.
– The alteration in But.
whereby this northern sea itself is now called the “Sea
of Britain” rather than “Galatian” may have
been prompted in part by unease on Bar
cEbroyo’s part with the fact that a part of
the Mediterranean is also called
“Galatian”.
De mundo syr. 139.29 (< gr. 393a
27); cf. para. [], []
above. – It is unclear whether (and if so, how) the name
“Sea of Britain” in But. can be traced back
to the Ptolemaic “Bretannikòs
ôkeanós” (Geog. II.3.3, 8.2, 9.1,
VII.3.2, 5.2).
3. Caspian Sea/Maeotis
[37] Cand.
[Bakos 158.3-12, Gottheil 50.3-11, Çiçek
114.4-21]: In the land of the Iberians (iberoyê)
there is a lake which is by itself (d-mennoh w-loh (h)i)
and is not connected to the Universal Sea, so that someone
setting out from a certain known place on its shores and
travelling around it would be able to reach the spot from which
he started, if it were not for that great river called the
Âtil [Volga], which pours its waters into this lake.
Because of its size and width, they call this lake a sea and
not a lake in the books and in the language of common usage.
Ptolemy calls it the Sea of Hyrcania and in our day they call
it “Khazar”. To the west of this lake are the Gate
of Iron [Darband], the plains of the Qipchaqs,
“Qipchaqs”
(Q’PSH’QY’,
QPSHQY’) occurs in Bar
cEbroyo’s works, usually in the form
“the plains of the Qipchaqs”, besides here
(Cand. 158.10) also at Cand. 157.6, 162.9 (6th
clime), and Chron. [Bruns-Kirsch] 483.20, 487.13, 493.1.
The first two instances in Chron. correspond to the
“dasht-i qifchâq” of Juwainî’s
Târîkh-i jahângushâ (ed.
Qazwini, I.111.1, I.150.1). Bedjan, in his edition of
Chron. “corrects” the spelling to
QPCHQY’, with
“ch” (456.2, 460.2, 465.23),
apparently without any manuscript support. – Male
“Caspians” Gottheil (1890) 42 et Bakos;
peius “Cappadocians” [!] Budge,
Chron. tr. p. 394, 398; recte Payne Smith,
Thes. syr. 3699 et Chabot (1898) 36.
Shirwân
and Tabaristân, to its south
Greater Armenia, to its east the land of the Iberians and to
its north the great desolate black mountain which is at the
extremity of the land in the northeast.
Rad. [Istanbul 38.10-16, Gottheil
54.13-55.2]: To the north of it is situated the Maeotis, the
lake of Caspia, i.e. of rushes (qnayyo)
The same gloss occurs in Asc., as
well as in ms. Paris syr. 207, 247rv (among the notes near the
end of a manuscript of Bar Kepha’s Homilies, 15th c.; see
Payne Smith, Thes. syr. col. 3653, 3680, s.vv.
qanyo et qaspiya). Nau in his edition of
Asc. took QNY’ to be a corruption of
“Hyrcania(ns)” (HWRQNY’), despite the
fact the “Hyrcania” is mentioned again immediately
afterwards in the text. The gloss may well have had its origin
in the corruption of “Hyrcania”, but as it stands
in the text of Bar cEbroyo it is best understood
with reference to the Arabic word qasab (“cane, rush, reed”).
“Caspian” is usually written with semkat,
but the form with
sodê is
also encountered (e.g. at De mundo syr. [de Lagarde]
140.11; Bar Shakko, Thes., BL Add. 7193, 70v b24).
; the ancients
call it (the lake) of Hyrcania and of the Iberians
(iberoyê), but in our day it is called
“Khazar”. From it a river-like tongue flows into
the Sea of Pontus, just as from the Sea of Pontus into the
Adriatic and [from] the Adriatic into the Oceanus.
Asc. [Nau 137.5-9]: To the north-east of
this sea is the Maeotis, the lake of the Caspians, i.e. of
rushes; Ptolemy calls it the Hyrcanian and others the Sea of
the Iberians. From it a river-like tongue goes out into the Sea
of Pontus, just as from the Pontus into the Adriatic.
But.: ... from which in turn a river-like
tongue goes out towards the northeast and flows into the
Maeotis, which is the lake of Caspia, Hyrcania and Iberia
(iberis).
[38] Here
again, the passage in Cand. has numerous points of
contact with the account of the Caspian Sea in
Bîrûnî, as well as the accounts in the
geographers of the Balkhi school. The possibility, for example,
of circumambulating the Caspian “if it were not for the
Atil/Volga” is a point that is constantly mentioned in
the accounts of the latter group and later authors dependent on
them.
See Istakhrî
[de Goeje] 8.6-8, 218.2-4 [Hînî] 17.24-26, 128.4f.; Ibn
Hauqal 388.4-6; Muqaddasî 362.2f.;
Yâqût I.500.20-21; Qazwînî,
cAjâ’ib 127.28-29, tr.
Ethé 260; Dimashqî 146.18f., tr. 194.
Of the localities mentioned, Shirwân and
Tabaristân are constantly
mentioned among the areas on the shores of the Caspian by
Arabic geographers, while the “great desolate black
mountain” (
turo rabbo w-shohyo
w-ukkomo), despite the insertion of the adjectives
“rabbo w-shohyo”, must in fact be the
“Black Mountain” of the Arabic geographers (usually
known by its Persian name, “Siyâh-Kûh”;
properly the Mangyshlak Peninsula).
See Istakhrî
[de Goeje] 8.7, 218.1, [Hînî] 17.25, 128.3; Ibn Hauqal 13.10, 386.4; Yâqût I.500.18
etc.; cf. EI2 VI.415-417 s.v.
“Mangishlak” [Bregel].
Two of the place-names
mentioned, unless they are alterations made by Bar
cEbroyo himself, may provide an indication of
relatively late works among his sources, namely “Gate of
Iron” (tarco d-farzlo), which evidently
corresponds to the “Gate of Gates” (Bâb
al-Abwâb, = Darband/Derbent) of the Arabic
geographers,
The application of the name “Iron
Gate” to Darband is of relatively late origin (only from
the Mongol period sec. Barthold, EI I.984, s.v.
“Derbend”, so also the successor article at
EI2 I.835, s.v. “Bāb al-Abwāb”
[Dunlop]). While the name is one that carries an association
with the legendary barrier built by Alexander the Great (see,
e.g., A.R. Anderson, “Alexander at the Caspian
Gates”, Transactions of the American Philological
Association 59 [1928] 130-163; id., Alexander’s Gate,
Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations [Cambridge (Mass.),
1932]; cf. S. Gero, “The Legend of Alexander the Great in
Orient”, BJRL 75 [1993] 1-9), it is unclear whether Bar
cEbroyo consciously associated Darband with
Alexander’s Gate. The same phrase as here,
tarco d-farzlo, is used of the barrier built
by Alexander at Bar cEbroyo, Chron. [Bedjan]
36.7 (< Michael, Chron. 72a 3f., tr. I.113, against
the “Huns”), without any specification however of
its whereabouts. At Cand. [Bakos] 99.2 “the
enclosed Gog” are located in the far northeast (cf.
Anderson [1932] 91-104); at Mukhtasar
tarîkh al-duwal [ed. Sâlhânî
(1958)] 58.10-13 the “barrier of Gog” (sadd
Yâjûj) built by Alexander is linked with, but
distinguished from, the “great barrier” (al-sadd
al-ac
zam) “which is
in Bâb al-Abwâb” (cf. William of
Rubruck’s “porta ferrea [Alexandri]” and
“claustra Alexandri”, Itinerarium, tr.
Rockhill [1900] 262f.). The more usual name “Gate of
Gates” for Darband is used by Bar cEbroyo at
Cand. 99.4 (tarc tarcin, in
the 5th clime; < Bîrûnî,
Tafhîm 145.2; cf. Causa causarum, ms. Laur.
or. 298, 135r 17, tr. Kayser 345, where we have
tarc tarcê, again presumably
from an Arabic source). For the identification further of Bar
cEbroyo’s tarco d-turqoyê (Chron. [Bedjan] 91.13;
< Michael, Chron. 382b 2, tr. II.364,
tarco d-turoyê,
without “q”) with Darband, see J. Marquart,
Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge
(Leipzig, 1903) 489; EIr VII.13a, 14b (s.v.
“Darband” [Kettenhofen], gr. Tzoúr, arm.
Čor). Cf. further the references cited at Payne Smith,
Thes. syr. col. 4506, s.v. tarco
d-turqoyê.
and the “Plains of the Qipchaqs”,
which seems to have replaced the “plains of the
Ghuzz” encountered in earlier works, the latter of these
being an alteration which is in accord with historical facts,
since the Qipchaqs drove the Ghuzz from the area north of the
Caspian in the mid-11th c.
See Minorsky (1937) 316f.; EI2
V.126a, s.v. “Kipčak” [Hazal]. A little after
Bar cEbroyo’s time, the name “Sea of the
Qipchaqs” is used of the Sea of Azov in Dimashqî
146.9, tr. 193.
3.1. "Iberian Sea"
[39] One
puzzling point in the passage of Cand. here is the
placement of the Caspian in “the land of the
Iberians”. This is then repeated in the later works
quoted above, where, in Asc. for example, the Caspian is
called the “Sea of the Iberians”. In these later
works, the problem is compounded by the identification of the
Caspian with the “Maeotis” (properly, Sea of Azov)
and the consequent connection of the Caspian with the Black
Sea, although in Cand. Bar cEbroyo is still
free of this error.
[40] The
clue as to why Bar cEbroyo places the Caspian in
“Iberia” is provided in the sentences in which he
mentions the various names under which the Caspian has been
known.
Cand. [Bakos 158.3-4, 8-9, Gottheil 50.3,
7-8, Çiçek 114.4-5, 14-15]: In the land of the
Iberians is a lake, ... Ptolemy calls it the Sea of Hyrcania
(’RQNY’) and in our day they call it
“Khazar” (KZR).
Rad. [Istanbul 38.12-13, Gottheil
54.4-55.1]: The ancients call it (the lake) of Hyrcania and of
the Iberians, but in our day it is called
“Khazar”.
Cf. Bîrûnî,
Tafhîm 123.7-8, 11-12 (pers. 169.2-170.1,
170.4-6): Near Tabaristan is the sea of
the port of Jurjân. ... It has been called after the
names of all the adjacent countries, but its appellation
(ishtihâruhu) among us is after the Khazars and
among the ancients after Jurjân. For Ptolemy calls it the
Sea of Hyrcania.
“For”: This must be the force of
“fa-” here, since Jurjân is
ancient Hyrcania. The nuance was apparently lost on Bar
cEbroyo, as well as on Humâ’î, the
editor of the Persian version of the Tafhîm, who
has “wa-Batlamiyûs
û-râ Daryâ-i Arqaniyâ
khwânad” in his text (170.5f.), while reporting
the reading “keh Batlamiyûs” of his best manuscript in
his apparatus (we also find the reading “kî
Batlamiyûs”, where
kî = keh, on the page of ms. Tehran, Majlis
6565 reproduced at S.H. Nasr, Islamic Science. An
Illustrated Study [sine loco (London), 1976] 38, fig. 14).
[41] It
would appear from the above that Bar cEbroyo’s
“Iberians” corresponds to
Bîrûnî’s “Jurjân”
(pers. Gurgân, to the southeast of the Caspian), an
erroneous correspondence, of course, and a disconcerting one
given the relative proximity of the lands in question to the
area in which Bar cEbroyo lived and worked, but one
which may be explained with reference to the older forms of the
name used for Georgia(ns), such as the Syriac
gurzân,
See Payne Smith, Thes. syr.
col. 691 and J.P. Margoliouth, Supplement to the Thesaurus
Syriacus of R. Payne Smith (Oxford, 1927; = PS Suppl.) 71a,
s.vv. GWRZN, GWRZNY’; cf. also Land (1887)
180. The definition “iberiya d-hi
gurzân” cited from Jacob of Edessa,
Chron. [Brooks] 281.6 in PS Suppl. is repeated by
Michael (Chron. 77.1f., tr. I.119) and so may well have
been known to Bar cEbroyo. The two instances of
“Gurzân/Gurzonoyê” in Bar
cEbroyo, Chron. (ed. Bedjan, 111.22, 124.1)
are taken from Michael (Chron. [Chabot] 446b 9, 474b 2,
tr. II.469, 522).
and the Arabic/Persian
jurzân, jurjân (as opposed to the
later standard kurj).
See Marquart (1903) 418 n.6; Minorsky (1937)
421. On the related, earlier confusion of “Iberia”
and “Hyrcania”, Marquart, “Beiträge zur
Geschichte und Sage von Ērān” ZDMG 49 (1895)
628-672, here 632f.; id., “Iberer und Hyrkanier”,
Caucasica 8 (1931) 78-113. – “Gurgân”
is found alongside “atro d-iberoyê” in
the map accompanying Cand. in ms. Berol. Sachau 81, but
in fainter ink like the other later additions to that map. It
is absent in the other copies of the early version of the map
accessible to me (Paris 210 and London, coll. Elias Assad; cf.
n. 2 above). – “Gurgân” does occur once
in Bar cEbroyo, Chron. (ed. Bedjan, 123.16)
without being “translated” into
“Iberia”, but Bar cEbroyo’s
immediate source there is not Arabic but Syriac (Michael,
Chron. [Chabot] 474b 10, tr. II.522, where Michael in
fact has “Hyrcania, i.e. Gurgân”).
[42] Bar
cEbroyo’s placement not only of
“Iberia” to the east of the Caspian but also of
Greater Armenia to its south suggests furthermore that behind
the account of the Caspian Sea in Cand. there also lurks
a confusion of the Caspian with the Black Sea.
Armenia may have extended to the eastern
shores of the Caspian in earlier times (so in Ptolemy’s
day, and hence the location of the “Armenians and
Albanians” at the eastern end of the Caspian in Jacob of
Edessa, Hex. 101a 2-3; cf. Schmidt [1999] 59f.), but
never to its southern shores. – The placement of
Tabaristân
(Mâzandarân) to the west, rather than south, of the
Caspian in Cand. is also worrying, but that at least is
a region on the shores of the Caspian.
This is
probably to be explained through the confusion of the names
applied to these two seas in some source used by Bar
cEbroyo, since we know that the name “Sea of
the Khazars”, though usually applied to the Caspian, was
also applied at times to the Black Sea,
So in Ibn Khurdâdhbih [de Goeje]
103.7, 105.8, 10, 12 etc., although the name is also used for
the Caspian at one place in the same work (173.2); cf. Minorsky
(1937) 419. – The confusion over the name is reported by
Bîrûnî, al-Qânûn
al-Mascûdî, V.9 (ed. Osmania
Oriental Publications Bureau [Hyderabad, 1954-6] II.538.20-21,
539.5, A.Z.V. Togan, Bīrūnī’s Picture
of the World [Delhi, 1952] 4.20, 5.2-3; cf. E. Wiedemann,
“Beiträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften
XXIX”, Sitzungeberichte der physicalisch-medicinischen
Societät zu Erlangen 44 [1912] 119-125, here 122f.):
“Among them are those which because of the size deserve
the name of ‘sea’, such as the Armenian Sea of
Pontus, known there as the Sea of the Khazars. ... And such as
the Sea of Jurjân which is the Sea of the Khazars in
truth.” – Cf. also the definition of the
“Pontus” as “bahr
al-khazar” in Syriac lexica (Bar Bahlûl [Duval]
1578.19; Payne Smith, Thes. syr. 3175).
while the name
“Sea of the Georgians” (daryâ-i
gurziyân) is used of the Black Sea in the 10th c.
Persian geographical work,
Hudûd al-câlam.
Tr. Minorsky (1937) p. 53, §3.4, 5; cf.
Minorsky’s discussion of the name in his commentary, p.
182f., 421-423.
[43] Bar
cEbroyo’s application of the name “Sea
of the Iberians” to the Caspian, his apparent confusion
of “Iberia” with Jurjân and his inclusion of
the “Iberians” among the peoples along the shores
of the northern Ocean (see para. [28],
[36] above) force us to ask at this point
who exactly the people are whom he designates by the name
“Iberians”. An examination of the references to
“Iberia” in Bar cEbroyo’s
Chron. and Chronicon ecclesiasticum shows that
his iberiya/iberoyê are usually the
Georgia(ns) as we know them, but not quite in every case. A
puzzling instance occurs at Chron. [Bruns-Kirsch] 71.4,
6, [Bedjan] 66.3, 6, where we find the “Iberians”
joining the Goths in the incursions leading to the battle of
Adrianople (378 A.D.) and where we find furthermore the word
for “Iberians” in the form iberis with the
ending “-is” as in the text of But. quoted
above.
GWT’Y’ W-’YBRYS
… GWT’Y’ W-’YBRY’S ed.
Bruns-Kirsch. The second instance also written
W-’YBRYS in Vat. syr. 166 according to Payne
Smith, Thes. syr. 136. Both instances
“corrected” to “iberoyê
(’YBRY’)” in ed. Bedjan.
Only the Goths are mentioned in the
corresponding passage of Michael (Chron. 152b 28ff., tr.
I.294) and in most other sources, but we do find the combined
forces of the “Goths and Abarê” at Adrianople
in Jacob of Edessa’s Chronicon,
Ed. Brooks in Brooks et al. Chronica
minora III (Paris, 1905) 300, right-hand col., l. 4.
which suggests
that the “iberis” of Bar cEbroyo,
Chron. [Bedjan] 66.3, 6 may, in fact, be the Avars
making an anachronistically early appearance (Avars would have
belonged to recent history in Jacob’s day).
In the drastically abridged form of the
story given in Bar cEbroyo’s
Mukhtasar ta’rîkh
al-duwal (ed. Beirut 1958, 83.14-17), Valens’ death
is made a part of the war against the Persians, with no mention
of Goths or Avars.
[44]
“Avars” does occur twice in Bar
cEbroyo’s Chron. at ed. Bedjan 89.15,
90.20,
Corresponding to Michael, Chron.
[Chabot] 376b 12, 379a 24, tr. II.353, 361 (written
’B’RYS, with an extra olaf, in
Michael, but ’BRYS in John of Ephesus, ed. Brooks,
324.19, 20 etc.). – The second of these instances belongs
to a much-discussed passage of Chron. concerning the
Avars and the migration of the Bulgars and Khazars. On the
passage at Bar cEbroyo, Chron. 90.19-91.15 as
a whole, along with its source-passage in Michael,
Chron. 379-382, tr. II.361-4 (itself based on John of
Ephesus), see Marquart (1898a) 82-85; id. (1898b) 198f.; id.
(1903) 15f., 479-491, 529f.; F. Altheim & R. Stiehl,
“Michael der Syrer über das erste Auftreten der
Bulgaren und Chazaren”, Byzantion 28 (1958) 105-118; A.
Alemany, Sources on the Alans. A Critical Compilation
(Leiden-Boston-Cologne, 2000) 388f., 392f.
where we hear of them raiding Roman territory
during the reigns of Tiberius I Constantine (578-82) and
Mauricius (582-602), actions which have certain similarities
with those of the Goths during the reign of Valens.
One might note in particular that Avars too
on their way to Constantinople reached a place called
Adropolis/Adrianople (’DRWPLYWS Michael, ed.
Chabot 379a 37; ’DRWPWLWS Bar cEbroyo,
ed. Bruns-Kirsch 95.9; ’DRYNWPWLYS Bar
cEbroyo, ed. Bedjan 90.24 and Brooks for loc. cit.
of Michael treated as a fragment of John of Ephesus, 341.25;
“Adrianopel” Altheim-Stiehl [1958] 109;
“Adrōpoliōs (Dérkous
poléôs)” Marquart [1903] 482, cf. id.
[1898a] 82 n.2).
For
our purpose, it is of note that the word “Avars”
appears there in the form ’BRYS, again with an
ending in “-is”.
[45] In
comparing the two passages about the Goths-Iberians and the
Avars, it becomes difficult, in spite the extra yud in
iberis, to avoid the impression that Bar
cEbroyo somehow associated the people he must have
known reasonably well as the iberoyê or
iberis and the people he knew only from remote history
as the abaris.
The possibility that Bar cEbroyo
distinguished between the
“iberis/abaris” written with
“-is” (Avars) on the one hand and the
“iberoyê” with
“-oyê” (Georgians) on the other can be ruled
out by the fact that the “iberis” of
Chron. [Bruns-Kirsch] 448.7, [Bedjan] 419.26, standing
under the command of Zachariah the Small, are clearly the
Georgians: “zakari zcuro rish haylo d-iberis”; cf. Ibn al-Athîr,
Kâmil [Beirut, 1965-66] XII.205.1f.:
“zakarî al-saghîr
... wa-huwa kâna muqaddam hâdha l-askar min
al-kurj”.
Such an association would have involved a
major expansion in Bar cEbroyo’s mind of the
Iberian territory beyond the Caucasus into the wide northern
steppes.
Further possible causes of confusion, if
Bar cEbroyo had any occasion to come accross such
names, include: Kerch (KRCH
,
KRJ) by the Sea of Azov (cf. Minorsky [1937] 182); a
people called *Karakh (written KRKH
or KRJ) in Daghestan (Minorsky, A
History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th
centuries [Cambridge, 1958] 95f.); and the possible
continuity in nomenclature between the ancient Avars and the
modern-day Daghestani Avars (Minorsky [1958] 98f., also id.
[1937] 447f.).
[46]
Whether the classic confusion of khazar and jurz
in Arabic led Bar cEbroyo to associate his
“Ibero-Avars” further with the
“Khazars” is unclear. On one occasion, Bar
cEbroyo alters the phrase “the khagan, the
king of the Avars” (K’GN malko
d-’B’RYS) he found in Michael (Chron.
379a 30) to “the khaqan, the king of the Khazars”
(K’Q’N malko d-khazaroyê) in his
Chron.,
Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bedjan] 90.22, corresponding to ed. Bruns-Kirsch 95.8 (where
K’QN). Cf. Marquart [1898b] 199.
suggesting, unless this is simply a
slip of the pen,
The formula “the khaqan, the king of
the Khazars” recurs in Bar cEbroyo,
Chron. at ed. Bedjan 96.1, 113.23f., 119.13; cf. also
217.24 (see following note).
that Bar cEbroyo did indeed
associate the “Khazars” with the
“Avars”. Furthermore, at Chron. [Bedjan]
217.13, we encounter the definition “Hyrcania, i.e. the
land of the Khazars”,
Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bruns-Kirsch] 229.5f., [Bedjan] 217.13. The word
“Khazars” is written KRZY’ here and in
the phrase “Khaqan of the Khazars” a few lines
later (Bruns-Kirsch 229.14, Bedjan 217.24) in ms. Bodl. Hunt. 1
(464d 51, 465a 6) and hence in ed. Bruns-Kirsch (ed. Bedjan has
KZRY’, followed by KRZY’ in
brackets), but the reading KZRY’, besides being an
obvious emendation (see preceding note), is found in Vat. syr.
166 (Payne Smith, Thes. syr. 1718).
where, since only the
Khazars are likely to have been mentioned in Bar
cEbroyo’s source, the equation of the land
with Hyrcania must be his own.
That the Khazars were named in Bar
cEbroyo’s source is confirmed by the parallel
passage of Mîrkhwand derived from the same place in the
lost Malik-nâmah (called
“Mulk-nâmah” by Bar
cEbroyo, but see Cahen, “Le Malik-nameh et
l’histoire des origines seljukides”, Oriens 2
[1949] 31-65, here 32 n.3): Mîrkhwand, Raudat al-safâ’,
Seljuks, ed. J.A. Vullers, Mirchondi Historia
Seldschukidarum (Giessen, 1838) 1.7 dasht-i khazar,
1.10, 2.11 malik-i khazar (the latter altered to
malik al-turk in Ibn al-Athîr, Kâmil
[Beirut 1965-6] IX.473.11ff.; and Akhbâr al-daula
al-saljûqîya, ed. Iqbal [Lahore, 1933] 1.9ff.;
cf. Cahen [1949] 42).
We also find the equation
“the Georgians, i.e. the Khazars” (al-kurj
wa-hum al-khazar) in the printed edition of the
Mukhtasar ta’rîkh
al-duwal, although here it is risky to determine whether
Bar cEbroyo wrote “al-khazar” or
“al-jurz” without an examination of the
manuscript evidence.
Mukhtasar,
ed. Beirut 1958, 201.20 (ad annum 514 h.). This corresponds to
Ibn al-Athîr, Kâmil, ed. Beirut, 1965-66,
X.567.1, where we find “al-kurj wa-hum
al-khazar” in the text, but
“al-jurz” in the footnote.
[47] It
might be added here that there are at least two instances in
Bar cEbroyo’s Chron. where
“Iberia” must in fact mean the Hispanic
“Iberia” rather than her Caucasian namesake, but
Bar cEbroyo may have been unaware of the
distinction.
Bar cEbroyo, Chron.
[Bedjan] 38.18, 66.15 (< Michael, Chron. 80b 8, 156b
2, tr. I.123, I.306).
This inability on Bar
cEbroyo’s part to distinguish between the two
lands called “Iberia” in classical times will then
have had a helping role in the placement of the
“Iberians” on the shores of the northern Ocean we
encountered at But., Min. V.i.3 (see para. [36] above).
3.2 Confusion of Maeotis and Caspian Sea
[48]
There is much uncertainty in Islamic geographical literature
over both the Maeotis (Sea of Azov) and the Caspian Sea.
Although Aristotle already states that the Caspian Sea is
isolated from other seas (Mete. 354a 3-4),
Among Bar cEbroyo’s
Syriac predecessors, Jacob of Edessa, Hex. [Chabot] 100b
33-34 and Bar Shakko, Thes. Paris syr. 316, 173v 2f., BL
Add. 7193, 70v b 21-26 explicitly state this (but not Bar
Kepha, in his Hex.).
the idea that it was in fact connected with other seas
persisted both among Greek and Islamic geographers, the sea
with which it was purportedly connected sometimes being the
northern Ocean and sometimes the Maeotis and the Pontus (Black
Sea),
See RE X.2276-81, s.v. “Kaspisches
Meer” [Herrmann], EIr V.51-53, s.v. “Caspian
Sea” [de Planhol]. – The Greek De mundo
(393b 5), in fact, makes the Caspian a gulf of the northern
Ocean. In the Syriac version, however, due to the omission of
the phrase “on the other side” (gr. epì
tháteron dé), it sounds as if the Caspian is
an extension either of the Indian Ocearn or the Red Sea (!)
(De mundo syr. 140.9-11; cf. also De mundo arab.
versions F and Y [Brafman] 88.14f., 143.4). – A factor
which would have helped keep the idea of a connection between
the Caspian and the Black Sea alive in later times is the
existence of the communication route between the Caspian and
the Sea of Azov via the Volga and the Don (cf.
Mascûdî, Murûj al-dhahab,
ed. Barbier de Meynard-Pavet de Courteille-Pellat [1965-79]
para. 295f.), separated from each other only by a small
distance at their nearest points and indeed joined today by the
Volga-Don canal (cf. Minorsky [1958] 151 n.1).
while the Maeotis, too, for its part had a
life of its own among Islamic geographers, sometimes being
detached from the Black Sea and located far to the north of
where it is in reality.
Minorsky (1939) 180-182; Miquel (1967-88)
III.240 with nn. 3-4; EI2 I.933-4 s.v.
“Bahr Māyutis” [Dunlop].
[49] The
principal culprit that misled Bar cEbroyo and caused
him, who explicitly states in Cand. that the Caspian Sea
is not connected to any other seas, later to change his mind on
this matter may be an infelicitous Syriac translation of a
passage in the De mundo.
De mundo syr. 140.25-28 [< gr. 393b
24-26]: Europe, which is surrounded by mountains,
“Mountains” not in the Greek;
perhaps due to misunderstanding of hóros
(boundary) as óros (mountain), although the
notion of “boundary” is represented in the Syriac
by “is bounded” (mettahhmo; dittography in the Greek exemplar?).
is
bounded by the Pillars (STLWS) of
Hercules and the extremity (
ceqbo < gr.
muchoí) of the Pontus, [and extends] up to the
Sea of the Hyrcanians, from which a certain narrow tongue is
cast into the Pontus (haw d-leshshono meddem aliso rmê menneh b-PNTWS; < gr. kath’ hên
stenótatos isthmòs eis tòn Pónton
diêkei). Some [say] instead of this tongue: that
river called the Tanais (
TN’YN).
[50] The
rendition of “kath’ hên” as
“from which” (d- ... menneh) is unfortunate
and would have led Bar cEbroyo to understand the
word “tongue” (leshshono, corresponding to
gr. isthmós), not as “isthmus”, but
as “strait”.
As did at least one of the Arabic
translators of the De mundo (version F, ed. Brafman,
90.1 khalîj dîq).
The last part of the passage
about the Tanais (properly, the Don) could then be understood
to mean that this strait, being a river-like channel, is also
called the “river Tanais”.
[51]
Having been misled by the above passage into believing that a
channel called the Tanais flowed from the Caspian into the
Pontus, Bar cEbroyo could then have been led to
identify the Caspian with the Maeotis by such passages as the
following, where it is stated that the Tanais flows from the
Maeotis into the Pontus.
Battânî 27.7f., 9f. [≈ Ibn
Rusta 85.16-86.1, 86.2-4]
Cf. also Kharaqî [Nallino] 175.3-5,
where, however, the Maeotis is equated with the “Sea of
Warang” due to conflation with
Bîrûnî’s Tafhîm. Cf.
further Marquart (1903) 162.
: There enters it [sc. the
Pontus] the river called the Tanais, and its flow is from the
north, from the lake called the Maeotis. ... By Constantinople
there pours forth from it [the Pontus] a channel which flows as
if it were a river and empties into the Sea of Egypt; its
breadth by Constantinople is three miles and Constantinople is
on it.
Michael, Chron. 381a 17-21, tr. II.363:
... to the river Tanais, which goes out from the Lake of
Maeotis and mingles with [lit. inside] the Sea of
Pontus.
This is a part of the passage on the
migration of the Bulgars and Khazars, just after the passages
on the Avars mentioned above (see n. 97 above). Cf. Marquart
(1903) 530 n.1.
[52]
Given the correspondence of much of the material elsewhere in
Rad. and Asc. to Battânî-Ibn Rusta
(and Kharaqî), we can be fairly certain that Bar
cEbroyo knew the above passage of
Battânî et al., while his knowledge of the passage
of Michael is vouched for by the fact he reproduced the
sentence above in his own Chron. (ed. Bedjan 91.2-4).
Battânî et al., in fact, go on to talk about the
Caspian Sea immediately following the passage quoted above
(Battânî 27.11f.), but it seems that Bar
cEbroyo’s trust in the Ps.-Aristotelian De
mundo led him to ignore that passage of Battânî
et al. in this case.
It is significant that Bar
cEbroyo does not give us the dimensions of his
Caspian/Maeotis as he does for other seas in Rad. and
Asc. (see para [] above). One
suspects that this may be due to his inability to choose
between the values given for the Maeotis (300 x 100 miles) and
the Caspian (800 x 600 miles) by Battânî et al.
Conclusion
[53] It
will be clear from what has been said that in compiling his
accounts of geography Bar cEbroyo made use, as was
his wont, of a diverse range of sources accessible to him, both
in Syriac and in Arabic.
[54]
Among the Syriac sources he certainly used, we can count the
Syriac version of the Ps.-Aristotelian De mundo, which
is used extensively in those parts of the passages quoted above
dealing with the Mediterranean, but less in those parts dealing
with the Ocean. There are also numerous points of contact with
the geographical accounts found in Jacob of Edessa’s
Hexaemeron, which was later reproduced in abbreviated
forms in Bar Kepha’s Hexaemeron and Bar
Shakko’s Book of Treasures. While the similarity
of the materials in these three works makes it difficult for us
to decide which of them Bar cEbroyo used as his
immediate source, there appears to be nothing in those parts of
Bar cEbroyo’s works examined above which
requires us to assume direct knowledge of the longer account
found Jacob of Edessa’s work. The similarities, on the
other hand, with the anonymous Causa causarum, which is
itself evidently indebted both to earlier Syriac works and to
more recent Islamic works, are not such as to indicate a use of
this work by Bar cEbroyo, as opposed to the use of
common sources. Bar cEbroyo also betrays influences
of historiographical and exgetical works in Syriac, which he
will have studied for the composition of his own works in these
fields.
[55]
Among the Arabic works which have been mentioned above, the
influence of Bîrûnî’s
Tafhîm is already evident in the earliest of the
five works of Bar cEbroyo examined, the
Candelabrum sanctuarii, as might have been expected from
what we already knew concerning the use of this work in the
Second Base of Cand.
For the map accompanying Cand.,
too, Bar cEbroyo may have used as one of his models
the sketch map of the seas found in the manuscripts of the
Tafhîm, although Bar cEbroyo’s
map combining the contours of the seas with the presentation of
the seven climes stands closer in its concept to the map found
with Qazwînî’s Âthâr
al-bilâd. – For the map accompanying
Bîrûnî’s Tafhîm, see ed.
Wright, p. 124 (from ms. British Library, Or. 8349, 14th c.);
pers. ed. Humâ’î, p. 169; Miller (1926-31)
V.125f.; Nasr (1976) 38, figs. 14 & 15 (mss. Tehran, Majlis
6565, 12th c.; and Tashkent, Institute of Oriental Studies); F.
Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums
(Leiden/Frankfurt, 1967-2000) [= GAS] XII.34, figs. 13ab
(Berol. Landberg 63 [5666 Ahlwardt], 1238 A.D.; and British
Library, Or. 8349). There is a similar schematic map of the
seas, no doubt based on Bîrûnî’s, in
Qazwînî,
cAjâ’ib 105,
tr. Ethé, p. 216; cf. Miller (1926-31) V.129f. –
For the map accompanying Qazwînî’s
Âthâr al-bilâd, see ed.
Wüstenfeld, p. 8; Miller (1926-31) V.131f. – Given
Bar cEbroyo’s use of Tûsî’s Tadhkira in his
Asc., another map of some interest to us is that
purportedly copied from an autograph of the Tadhkira at
J. Needham et al., Science and Civilisation in China,
vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1959) 563 (thence also in Sezgin, GAS
XII.36, fig. 15). The authenticity of this map, however, is
cast in doubt by Needham’s dating of this
“autograph” to 1331 A.D. some half a century after
the author’s death and the fact that Prof. F.J. Ragep,
the editor of the Tadhkira, kindly informs me that the
manuscripts of the work known to him do not contain such maps
(Prof. Ragep points out the resemblance of the map reproduced
by Needham to that found in
Nîsâbûrî’s Taudîh al-tadhkira).
A number of passages in
Cand. also indicate a debt to the geographers of the
so-called Balkhi School. The relative brevity of these passages
makes it difficult to determine whether they are based directly
on the works of these geographers or on later compilations such
as Yâqût’s Mucjam
al-buldân.
In view of Bar cEbroyo’s
debt elsewhere to Nasîr
al-Dîn al-Tûsî, it
might be mentioned here that the medieval Persian version of
Istakhrî’s
al-Masâlik wa-l-mamâlik is attributed to
Tûsî in ms. Vienna,
Nationalbibl. 1271 Flügel (Mixt. 344). The manuscript,
however, is of recent date and the attribution is likely to be
erroneous (see I. Afshâr, Masâlik
wa-mamâlik (tarjuma-i fârsî-i Masâlik
al-mamâlik) az qarn-i 5/6 hijrî,
ta’lîf-i Abû Ishâq Ibrâhîm Istakhrî [Tehran, 1961] preface, p.V
[English], 13f., 18 [Persian]).
[56] Two
points in Cand., unless they are alterations/additions
made by Bar cEbroyo himself, will be indicative of
the inclusion among his sources of a relatively late work,
namely the mention of the “Gate of Iron” and
“plains of the Qipchaqs” among the regions on the
shores of the Caspian (Cand. 158.10, also 157.6) and the
phrase “the land of Andalus of the Arabs, which now in
our day the Franks have conquered” (157.10).
The Reconquista had, of course, been in
progress for some time, while Granada remained in Muslim hands
for two more centuries after Bar cEbroyo’s
death, but it was within his lifetime that cities such as
Cordoba (1236) and Seville (1248) fell to the Christians.
– Cf. Dimashqî 241.10f.: … jazîrat
al-andalus, wa-hiya mimmâ malakahu al-muslimûn
thumma tarakûhu (om. thumma tarakûhu
codd. St.-Pet. et Leid.).
[57] One
change Bar cEbroyo makes between the account in
Cand. and that in Rad. and Asc. is the
addition of the values for the lengths and breadths of the
seas. These values generally agree with those given by
Battânî, Ibn Rusta and Kharaqî, as well as
with those given by Jacob of Edessa and, following him, Bar
Kepha and Bar Shakko. Some of the values given by Bar
cEbroyo, however, are not found in Jacob and,
furthermore, where the Arabic authors and Jacob diverge from
each other Bar cEbroyo is in agreement with the
former, so that Bar cEbroyo’s source for these
values must be sought among the Arabic works, if not
Battânî’s Zîj itself, at least a
work closely related to it. Further indications of Bar
cEbroyo’s use of Battânî or a
related work are provided by the agreement of the values for
the circumferences of the islands in the Meditarranean given in
Rad. and Asc. with those in
Battânî-Ibn Rusta (these values are not in Jacob or
Kharaqî) and by the agreement of a number of further
passages, such as that on Taprobane/Sarandîb in
Rad., with those in Battânî et al.
[58]
Another alteration that can be observed between Cand.
and the later works is the disappearance of a good number of
Arabo-Persian place-names and the replacement of some of these
by their Greco-Syriac equivalents.
E.g. the disappearance of
“Basra”,
“Qumair”, “Âtil”,
“Shirwân”, “Tabaristân”; replacement of
“Andalus” by “Ispaniya” and of
“yammo d-fârs” by “yammo
d-cilimoyê”; alteration of
’RQNY’ to HWRQNY’ and of
’RQLYS to HRQLYS. – It may also be
noted that Bar cEbroyo had not hesitated to use
Arabic words for “clove”, “aloe” and
“camphor” in transliteration at Cand. 155.2
(in the passage quoted under para. []
above).
Although in
one case at least (replacement of “Sea of Warang”
by “Galatian Sea”) the change can be attributed to
a re-reading of the Syriac De mundo, it is probably
factors other than the use of new sources which are at play
behind these alterations. One factor may be the increased
familiarity on Bar cEbroyo’s part with the
Greco-Syriac place-names gained through his researches for the
composition of his Chron. and Chron.
eccl., the date of whose composition falls between that
of Cand. and that of Asc.
As an indication for the date of
composition of Chron., we have the date “Ilul
1587” (1276 A.D.) mentioned at ed. Bedjan 37.18f. (cf.
Göttsberger [1900] 40). Fiey would have Bar
cEbroyo composing Chron. during his stay in
Maragha in 1272-3, apparently on the basis of Bar
cEbroyo’s statement in the proem to this work
that he used the books in the library in Maragha for composing
this work (J.M. Fiey, “Ādarbāyğān chrétien”,
Muséon 86 [1973] 397-435, here 432). It is quite
conceivable that Bar cEbroyo conducted some of his
research in Maragha in 1272-3 and then put together the results
of his research a little later. Bar cEbroyo no doubt
also continued updating this work until close to his death.
Another
possible factor is an increased sense of Syriac national
identity prompted by the new situation in which the Syriac
Christians found themselves under Ilkhanid rule.
See Takahashi (2001), para. 42-47. The
composition of Chron. and Chron. eccl.
might in itself be considered an expression of such a sense of
identity.
[59] More
generally concerning the relationship between the five works of
Bar cEbroyo studied here, it may be stated that
Cand. stands somewhat apart from the others as the
earliest of the five. The accounts of the seas in Rad.
and Asc. are very similar to each other, while the
account in Eth. too, though shorter, shares many
features with these. The similarity here between Asc.
and Eth. is not so surprising given that these two works
are known to have been composed in the same year in 1279. The
similarity between Rad. and Asc., on the other
hand, is a little more unexpected and this similarity forces us
to reconsider the terminus ante quem of 1272 for the
composition of Rad., which its mention in Horr.
suggests. In composing the geographical account for
But., the last of the five works composed some six years
after Asc. and Eth., Bar cEbroyo
apparently made use of his earlier accounts in both
Cand. and Rad./Asc., but at the same time
added some new materials, most notably from those parts of the
De mundo which he had not used in his earlier
works.
Since But. as a whole is a work on
Aristotelian philosophy, it is not so surprising that Bar
cEbroyo should have taken a renewed look, when
composing this work, at the De mundo, which he will have
believed to be a genuine work of the Stagirite.
[60]
Geography, unlike philosophy and theology, is a science that
deals with particulars rather than with universal and eternal
truths, and place-names especially are subject to alteration
over time. Bar cEbroyo’s habit of using
diverse sources originating from different periods of history
was as a result to prove more a detriment than an advantage for
the purpose of composing a geographical account, and his trust
in the works of the ancients and in the faulty Syriac version
of the Pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo in particular was to
become a source of error, as we saw in his account of the
Caspian Sea.
One will have to admit that, in matters of
geography at least, Bar cEbroyo is not so much a
first-rate scholar as a “letterkundige” in the
sense in which the term was applied to the compiler of the
Skarifos d-tebil by Land (Land [1887] 169: “De
bewerker van den
σκάριφος is geen
mathematicus, en in het geheel geen geleerde, maar een
»letterkundige”, die het werk van anderen pasklaar
maakt voor een oppervlakkig onderwezen publiek, en in zijne
soort niet een van de uitmuntenden.”)
Nevertheless, what we find in the passages
of Bar cEbroyo’s works examined here is a
valiant attempt at a synthesis of the various source materials
available to him, and makes for a far more interesting reading,
at any rate, and a more challenging one for those interested in
Quellenforschung than many comparable accounts both in
Syriac and Arabic from the late medieval period, including that
in the work of Bar cEbroyo’s older
contemporary, Bar Shakko, who was often content merely to
excerpt long passages out of a single source._______
Notes
50 ... gozroto mshammhoto d-hendwoye
d-metqaryo SRNDYB wa-hrito d-metqaryo
Q’MYR/QMYR ed. Bakos et Gottheil 49.3; add.
hdo post d-henwoye ed.
Çiçek 113.5-7 (i.e. “… famous
islands of the Indians, one which is called …, another
…). – Q’MYR Bakoš cum Parisino
et Berolinensi; QMYR Gottheil, Çiçek (<
cod. Hierosolymitanus) et cod. Vaticanus. Cf.
Bîrûnî, Tafhîm 122.12 (pers.
168.4). Bîrûnî’s “Qumair”,
associated with the Dîbajât islands (Laccadives and
Maldives) at Tafhîm, loc. cit., as well as at
Hind [Sachau] 103.3, 8 (cf. also id. Tahdîd [Bulgakov] 138.8), is a touch more
likely to be Madagascar/Comoro (Qumr) (so Wright in his edition
of Tafhîm, p. 122 footnote) than Khmer
(Qimâr) as suggested by Wiedemann (1912a) 5 n.4 (so also
Nallino [1899-1907] I.170 n.8, Jwaideh [1959] 31 n.4), unless
it is in fact a conflation of the two.
_______
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