Berlin Staatsbibliothek Petermann I 24: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 12:17, 14 January 2026
Manuscript Identification
Textual Content & Tradition
Languages
Digitisation & Editions
Note
A precise provenancing of this manuscript is difficult to achieve. It was obtained by Julius Heinrich Petermann during his travels in eastern Anatolia in the 1850s. However, as far as I can find, Petermann does not provide any information on where he obtained it. Paratextual comments suggest that it circulated between at least two different monasteries. However, the presence of page numberings, an unusual practice in Syriac outside of hagiographies, is limited to a few monasteries, one of which is the old patriarchal headquarters of Mor Bar Sauma, just outside Melitene, where Michael Andreopoulos translated the Syriac into the Greek Syntipas. One potential reconstruction of this manuscript’s circulation history would be an initial production at Mor Bar Sauma, based on the earlier Sindban manuscript used by Michael Andreopoulos, likely around the 15th century (given that Garshuni only really takes off in the late 14th century), followed by an enforced move east in the 16th/17th century (when Mor Bar Sauma was gradually abandoned, and when we have records of the insertion of replacement folios in the manuscript), followed by a another move between the 17th and 19th centuries.
The original texts of the manuscript seem to have been put together by at least 4 different hands (not including replacement folios). On folio 15, we have a series of signed paratextual records: in 1579 we have a priest, Hidayat, who, following aristocratic Syriac custom, provides family details, and, in 1660, a deacon named Qūsṭanṭīn. The other names are not dated, but follow the conventions of early modern Serto without diacritics or vocalisations. One possibility is that the dominant landowners around Mardin, a Syriac Christian family which produced several patriarchs of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and among whom the names Hidayat (admittedly a Syriac common name) and Qūsṭanṭīn (a far less common, classicising name) were ubiquitous, came to acquire the manuscript in the 1500s, which would explain both the apparent explosion of interest in the manuscript during this period and the literary links to the folk poetry of the Mardin region.
The manuscript contains a heterogenous collection of folk and wisdom literature traditions. However, only 87 folios of the original 177 survive, and about half of the remaining folios are inserted replacements, with dated paratextual comments suggesting that the process of replacement began in the 16th/17th century. We therefore cannot securely assess the full original character of the manuscript. The first part of the manuscript is taken up by a dialogue between God and Moses on Mount Sinai, comprising of a series of wise aphorisms and followed by a prophetic speech concerning the last judgement, and then a Garshuni (Arabic language in Syriac script) version of Aesop’s fables, set in a frame story at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Six fables, however, forming a continuous group in the middle, are in Syriac.
The Sindban itself takes up pages 60a-87b, and is written in fine small Serto script. The manuscript also contains medical advice (how to tell when a woman is pregnant with a boy), and a collection of spiritual addresses to the soul in (inconsistent and poorly rhymed) Iambic metre. In the case of the latter, the poet identifies himself as Habib, a presbyter from the village of Klebin near Mardin (the heartland of Syriac monasteries on the Tur Abdin plateau). Sachau notes the similarities between these verses and contemporary Arabic folk songs from the Mardin/Sirnak region.Authorship & Production
Physical Description
Contents & Additional Texts
1r-14v: Story of God's conversation with Moses on Mount Sinai.
16r, a) Lines 1-8 in the prima manus, the remains of a Syriac narrative, b) Lines 8-16, Karschuni, in a later hand: Some verses that are said to have been inscribed on Solomon's glass (?ܙܓܐܓ?).
16r-57v, Karschuni: Aesop's fables. (The Aesopian fables conclude with folio 53, and folios 54–57 belong to a different collection of fables.)
58r–59v: Address to the Soul, a call to repentance and reflection.
60r-87v Syriac: Sinbad Tales.Catalogues & Research Literature
Research Material
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