Skip to Main Content
Epigraphy
Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents
The Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents (CCED) was founded in order to archive, catalogue, and digitize epigraphic materials. The digitized images are to be placed online, allowing scholars easy access to these documents.
University of Exeter - Virtual Magic Bowl Archive
The main reason for compiling a database of personal names included in the Babylonian magic bowls is a desire to find out more about the individuals behind the magic
Manuscripts
"Gutenberg Bible" of Modern Syriac
This small booklet, translated "Lessons from the Words of God," was the first ever printed in modern Syriac or Assyrian. It was printed at the press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Urmia, Persia, in 1841, under the direction of Edward Breath, a missionary and printer. Justin Perkins was, at the time, the head of this early Protestant mission to the Nestorians.
Bodleian Library
There is a vast literature in Syriac, enlarged by many translations from Greek. As early as 1864, when the main catalogue for Syriac manuscripts was printed, the Bodleian possessed 205 codices. As many of these contain several items the number of works is much larger; there have also been later additions. Most of the manuscripts arrived in the Library as donations, often from the same sources, such as Laud and Huntingdon, as the Hebrew manuscripts. Syriac has also given rise to two other bodies of literature. Karshuni is the Arabic language written in Syriac script. Mandaean is a development of Syriac used chiefly for magical texts of which, in the Drower Collection, the Bodleian Library is the world’s foremost repository.
British Library
The British Library's Syriac language manuscript collection is one of the largest and most diverse in the world, containing 1,075 manuscripts and 12,000 printed books. The manuscripts range in date from 450 to 2000 A.D.
e-Ktobe : Manuscrits Syriac
E-ktobe is a database on Syriac manuscripts which aims to collect information on texts, physical elements, colophons and notes. It is in the process of being moved to a new database, so the interface is still in a development phase.
Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML)
For almost 50 years, teams from the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library have been photographing and supporting the digitization of manuscript collections across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and south India, making HMML the world’s leader in the photographic preservation of manuscripts.
Morgan Library & Museum
includes researchers guides to the collections
Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
Since 1996 the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, now a part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, has undertaken digital humanities projects related to Syriac studies, manuscript studies and the Dead Sea Scrolls. These projects provide access to primary resources for the study of ancient religious texts.
The Syriac Library
This page contains a collection of public domain texts in Syriac. All texts are in Unicode and use the Beth Mardutho Meltho fonts.
University of Manchester Library
70 items (some composite), ranging from the 6th century to the 20th, were acquired from Lord Crawford, James Rendel Harris and Alphonse Mingana.
They are mainly theological and liturgical codices, and include a 6th-century Gospel Book (Syriac MS 1), parts of the Old and New Testaments, lectionaries, commentaries, psalters, collections of hymns, and prayers, amulets or charms, and liturgical books. Secular texts include dictionaries, grammatical treatises, and works on astrology and divination. 48 items are West Syrian, the remainder East Syrian and Melkite.
Virtual Library of the Mediterranean Sea
A shared library in many languages, many scripts, with written, image and audio resources. It encompasses our common heritage of written and graphical documents, currently preserved in Mediterranean countries
Manuscript catalogs
Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the Library of the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem
There are 48 Syriac manuscripts in this body of material. The manuscripts are of a distinctive theological character and period. The manuscripts range in age from 1251 AD to 1880 AD, although most of the manuscripts are 15th and 16th centuries. The oldest manuscript is a document known as the liturgy for the Feast of Rogations of the Ninivites (MS. 37). The next oldest is a New Testament Text with the expected omission of the books of Revelation and of the four Catholic Epistles dated 1261 AD.