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293 NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA in a 19Th CENTURY SYRIAC NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA 293 NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA IN A 19th CENTURY SYRIAC ANNALISTIC SOURCE Introduction1 A collection of Syriac and Garshuni manuscripts, owned by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage and currently housed at the Cen- tre of Iraqi Manuscripts in Baghdad, includes two loose leaves bearing the number 1702. The two leaves are inserted in codex No. 18078, a Kurdish Grammar in Syriac, though no literary connection exists be- tween the two sources. The leaves, mere paper, measure 17.5 x 12 cm each. The content of the leaves consists of short annalistic notes of histori- cal interest written in classical Syriac using vocalized East Syriac script. In some notes the year is identified, and in this case both the Seleucid and Gregorian calendars are used, in addition to two other chronological systems. The purpose of this source is not clear, but it may have been produced as “aide-mémoire,” helping the reader or the writer remember events of personal significance. Nonetheless, the interest of the Annalistic Source goes much beyond its role as an aid to memory. The source mentions events dealing with upper Mesopotamia under Ottoman rule, and some of them may not be found in other literary sources. The Cataloguing of the Annalistic Source At the top of its verso, the first leaf of the Annalistic Source bears the words “N° 170”, written with a professional hand. Despite the fact that the two leaves are now inserted in the Kurdish Grammar bearing the 1 I would like to thank Dr. Mu’ayyad Sa¨id al-Damerji, former Director General, the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, and Mr. Usama al-Naqashbandi, Director of the Centre of Iraqi Manuscripts, for allowing me to work on the Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts housed at that institution in the summer of 1999 and for their permission to publish this document. My thanks are also due to Zaynab Ramadhan Nur, Head of Cura- tors at the said Centre, Dr. Nawala al-Mutwalli, Head of the Department of Cuneiform Studies, the Iraq Museum, and Dr. Donny George Yukhanna, then Head of External Rela- tions, the Iraqi Museum, for facilitating my work on the Syriac manuscripts. My work was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 2 See my Catalogue of Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage (forthcoming). Le Muséon 119 (3-4), 293-305. doi: 10.2143/MUS.119.3.2017950 - Tous droits réservés © Le Muséon, 2006. 294 A. HARRAK number 18078, the Annalistic Source must once have been catalogued. In 1902 the famous scholar Bishop Addai Scher catalogued the manu- scripts of the monastery of Our Lady of the Seeds, most of which came originally from the monastery of Rabban Hormizd, including the Kurdish Grammar in question. His catalogue ends with number 1533, and thus he may not have been the cataloguer who numbered the Annalistic Source. In the late 1930s, the Dominican Father Jacques Vosté catalogued the manuscripts once again, but did not refer to the Annalistic Source when he catalogued the Kurdish Grammar4. Item number 170 in Vosté’s Catalogue is a manuscript containing the letters of the Catholicos Timothy I, copied in the monastery of Our Lady of the Seeds in 18945 and now the property of the Chaldean Monastic Order6. Even the late Iraqi scholar Gorgis ‘Awwad who wrote about the manu- script collection of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd7 failed to mention the Annalistic Source, and thus the number given to this document re- mains enigmatic. The Centre of Iraqi Manuscripts did not seem to notice this document when it acquired the Kurdish Grammar in the 1980’s8 and it is hoped that it will not be lost because it is not catalogued among its many other manuscripts. Author, date and place of writing The author of our annalistic source is not named. That he was a monk in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd on the mountain of Alqosh is be- yond doubt since the source mentions “our monastery of Rabban Hormizd” (line 49). For two reasons, one may venture to add that the author was AblaÌÌad son of ¨Awdisho son of Khoshaba of Alqosh, a priest, monk, and author in the monastery. First, the leaves are inserted 3 A. SCHER, Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques conservés dans la bibliothèque du couvent des Chaldéens de Notre-Dame-des-Semences, in Journal Asiatique, Juillet-Août 1906, p. 153 (= SCHER, Notice). 4 J. VOSTÉ, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque Syro-Chaldéenne du couvent de N.-D. des Semences, Paris, 1929, p. 35 (= VOSTÉ, Catalogue). 5 VOSTÉ, Catalogue, p. 66-67. 6 BU™RUS ÎADDAD – JAK ISÎAQ, Al-Makh†u†at al-surianiyya wal-¨arabiyya fi khizanat al-ruhbaniyya al-kaldaniyya, I. Al-Makh†u†at al-surianiyya [The Syriac and Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the Chaldean Monastic Order, I. Syriac Manuscripts], Baghdad, 1988, p. 230-231 (= ÎADDAD – ISÎAQ, Al-Makh†u†at). 7 GORGIS ¨AWWAD, Ancient Monument in Iraq: The Monastery of Rabban Hormizd, Mosul, 1934, p. 50-58 (in Arabic). 8 USAMA AL -NAQASHBANDI – JAMIL RUFAˆIL, Makh†u†at Araden [The Manuscript of Araden], in Bayn al-Nahrain [Mesopotamia] 13 (1976), p. 79-71; F.A. PENNACCHIETTI, Un manoscritto curdo in karsuni da Aradin (Iraq), in Annali dell'Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 36 [N.S. XXVI] (1976), p. 548-552. NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA 295 in the Kurdish Grammar referred to above, which he himself composed in classical Syriac and Kurdish Garshuni. He could have placed the leaves inside his codex for convenience, and if this were the case one would wonder why both Scher and Vosté failed to mention them. Sec- ond, the annalistic source ends with the year 1879 whereas the Kurdish Grammar was completed in 1888; there was less than a decade between the two sources9. The place of writing must have been the monastery of Rabban Hormizd, though the Kurdish Grammar was completed in Araden, near ¨Imadiyya. Edition and translation An edition and translation of the Annalistic Source will be given be- low. Since most of the events mentioned in it are well known, there is no reason to analyse them at length. Thus, we will limit ourselves to a com- parison of the historical data with comparable information gathered from other Syriac sources. [F1v] 5 10 10 11 9 Notice also the historical note written by Fr AblaÌÌad on the properties of the mon- astery of Rabban Hormizd in 1881; VOSTÉ, Catalogue, p. 80 no 2 = ÎADDAD – ISÌAQ, Al- Makh†u†at, p. 102 no 2. 10 Erroneous (for in line 8) is here crossed off. 11 The year is corrected from what looks like that the author crossed off (see the comments below). 296 A. HARRAK 15 [F1r] 20 12 25 ” 30 13 [F2v] ” 35 14 40 12 The beth of is darkened and replaced by a clearly written one placed above it. 13 Erroneous (for in line 32) is here rightly crossed off by the au- thor. 14 The phrase is wrongly changed from the correct original since the subject is “camps” (feminine plural) NORTHERN MESOPOTAMIA 297 45 [F2r] 50 55 60 15 1 [F1v] Through God, we are also writing the yearly computation of world eras. The year when the waters of the Tigris froze: 2072 of the Greeks [AD 1760/1]. 5 The year of Tahmasp: 2056 of the Greeks [AD 1744/5]. The year of the Great Pestilence: 2089 of the Greeks [AD 1777/8]. The year of the Small Pestilence: 2111 of the Greeks [AD 1799/1800]. The year pestilence attacked the region of Mosul: 10 2139 of the Greeks [AD 1827/8]. The year another pestilence took place; 94 people died in one day: 213916 of the Greeks [AD 1827/8]. 15 Unnecessary final digit is here rightly deleted. 16 The date is corrected from Seleucid 2049 (A.D. 1738/9); see the comments below. 298 A. HARRAK The year Sayyid Îasan Rashwan came to Tal-Kepa [Tel-Kef]: 2147 of the Greeks [AD 1835/6]. 15 The year Mira Kora came to besiege ¨Imadiyya for seven years. He planted [F1r] a vineyard from which he ate, and then waged a battle against the city and conquered it: 2145 of the Greeks [AD 1833/4]. 20 The year Mira Kora came to ¨Aqra and waged a battle against Salman Agha: 2144 of the Greeks [AD 1832/3]. The year Rasul-Beg17 ruled over ¨Imadiyya –– this Rasul-Beg was the brother 25 of Mira Kora: 2146 of the Greeks [AD 1834/5]. The year Rashid-Pasha came, seized Mira Kora and drove him away to Byzantium. This Rashid-Pasha was amazing in terms of his army, for four 30 camps he had18: The first camp was made of white19 chariots and cavalry; [F2v] the second was made of black chariots and cavalry; the third was made of red 35 chariots and cavalry; the fourth was made of pale chariots and cavalry. It is also said that there were two others yellow and blue: 2147 of the Greeks [AD 1835/6]. The year came Inje-Bayraqdar, that is 40 Muhammad Pasha, to ¨Imadiyya and conquered it, and GMLM∑ built a military barrack in Da’udiyya of ∑apna: 2152 of the Greeks [AD 1840/1]. The year Badr-Khan Beg came to ™iyare, pillaged it and devastated it with the sword: 2154 of the Greeks [AD 1842/3]. 45 The year Mira Kora came to strike Alqosh and Khatre [Άara] with the sword: 1832 of our Lord. The year Isma¨il Pasha came [F2r] to our monastery of Rabban Hormizd, pillaged 17 The homonym is corrected from some other misspelled form.
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