The Seventh Century in the West Syrian Chronicles

by Duncan F. Kennedy (Introduction)

Overview

The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles makes accessible to a wide public sources vital for the reconstruction of events in the first Islamic century, covering the period which ends with the unsuccessful Arab siege of Constantinople, an event which both modern historians and Syriac chronographers see as making a decisive caesura in history. The general introduction enables a newcomer to the field to establish his bearings before tackling the texts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780853232384
Publisher:	Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	01/05/1993
Series:	Translated Texts for Historians LUP , #15
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Andrew Palmer came down from Oxford in 1977 with a Double First in Classical Greats. He spent 1977-8 in Tur Abdin and Munich, preparing himself to write a thesis in the history of Syriac monasticism. With a D. Phil. from Oxford (1983), he went on to write Monk and mason on the Tigris Frontier: The early history of Tur Abdin (Cambridge 1990). Since then he has published more than a hundred articles on the history of Mesopotamia and on Syriac literature. In 2009, for example, in L' historiographie syriaque, ed. M. Debie [acute accent on the last {e}], appeared his 'Les chroniques breves [grave accent on the first {e}] syriaques', which expands on what he (and Robert Hoyland) wrote on the Syriac minor chronicles in The seventh century in the West-Syrian chronicles (1993). Recently he has specialized in editing and translating Syriac texts, including The Life of Barsawmo the Northerner and Bishop Israel's chronicle of the Ottoman Genocide. From January 2016 he will be employed at the Research Centre for Aramean Studies, University of Constance, to edit, translate and elucidate the Universal Chronicle by Gregorius Barhebraeus (died 1286).

Andrew Palmer came down from Oxford in 1977 with a Double First in Classical Greats. He spent 1977-8 in Tur Abdin and Munich, preparing himself to write a thesis in the history of Syriac monasticism. With a D. Phil. from Oxford (1983), he went on to write Monk and mason on the Tigris Frontier: The early history of Tur Abdin (Cambridge 1990). Since then he has published more than a hundred articles on the history of Mesopotamia and on Syriac literature. In 2009, for example, in L' historiographie syriaque, ed. M. Debie [acute accent on the last {e}], appeared his 'Les chroniques breves [grave accent on the first {e}] syriaques', which expands on what he (and Robert Hoyland) wrote on the Syriac minor chronicles in The seventh century in the West-Syrian chronicles (1993). Recently he has specialized in editing and translating Syriac texts, including The Life of Barsawmo the Northerner and Bishop Israel's chronicle of the Ottoman Genocide. From January 2016 he will be employed at the Research Centre for Aramean Studies, University of Constance, to edit, translate and elucidate the Universal Chronicle by Gregorius Barhebraeus (died 1286).

Table of Contents

Introduction
The confessional background
The historical context (by R. H.)
The texts
Chronology and Chronological tables
Select bibliography of West-Syrian chronicles
Abbreviations, brackets, signs
Minor West-Syrian Chronography
A record of the Arab conquest of Syria, AD 637
Extract from a chronicle composed about AD 640
Extract from the Melkite Chronicle (AD 642+)
Extract from the Maronite Chronicle (AD 664+)
Fragment of James of Edessa, AD 691/2
A list of caliphs, composed after AD 705
A chronicle of disasters dated AD 716 (tr. S. P. B.)
A list of caliphs from the Arabic (AD 724+)
Extract from an 'Account', written in AD 775
Extract from the Chronicle of Zuqnin, AD 775
Inscriptions of Ehnesh, late eighth century
Extracts from two chronicles up to AD 819/846
Dionysius of Tel-Mahre Secular History, introduction
Concordance of the contents
Extract from the Chronicle of AD 1234
Two Apocalyptic Texts of AD 691+ (by S. P. B.)
Extract from the Apocalypse of Ps.-Methodius
The Edessene Apocalyptic Fragment
Epilogue
Appendices, Index and Maps

Editorial Reviews

Translations of primary sources from the first Islamic century: a dozen miscellaneous texts AD 636-847, a long extract from The Chronicle of AD 1234, The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodisium, and related texts. Well supported by the whole battery of scholarly apparatus. Distributed in the US by the U. of Pennsylvania Press. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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