A couple more interesting items have reached me.
The first is the discovery of a new Universal History of the early 8th century! This is being called “The Maronite Chronicle of 713”.
It has reached us in the collection of Mount Sinai, in Arabic translation, and Adrian Pirtea discovered recently. His article is open access, and published at Medieval Worlds 23 (2025), pp.155-167. Here’s the abstract:
This research note introduces the Maronite Chronicle of 713, a hitherto unknown Christian world chronicle in Arabic, recently identified by the author in the collection of manuscripts at St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai.
Extant in a single thirteenth-century manuscript (Sinai Ar. 597), this Arabic chronicle is a translation of a lost Syriac work, originally composed in 712-713 CE, probably in a Syriac Monothelete milieu with close ties to the Monastery of Mar Maron.
The chronicle covers the history of the world from Adam to 692-693 CE and exhibits numerous parallels with the so-called »eastern source«, which informed the chronicles of Theophanes, Michael the Syrian, Agapius of Mabbug and the anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234.
To demonstrate the links between these sources and the new chronicle, the note analyses, as a case study, a passage discussing the main events of the year 633-634 CE.
The author argues that the Maronite Chronicle of 713 provides an alternative chronology of events for this year and thus represents an independent source for the early stages of the Arab conquests.
A more detailed study and a critical edition and annotated translation of this new chronicle are in preparation.
This is marvellous stuff, of course. This is the raw material of history. UPDATE: See these posts for transcription and partial translation.
The Byzantine tradition of writing history persisted in Syriac, and naturally entered Arabic also. It highlights once again how we really need to dig into Arabic sources, especially Christian Arabic literature. Basic stuff, about the Muslim conquest of the Near East – not without importance today – is still out there, unedited, untranslated.
Thankfully Dr P. is going to do both for his chronicle!
Update: Alex Hourani has put online a transcription here of the Arabic, and some comments here on Pirtea’s article. I gather the transcription is not complete, as some areas of the manuscript are damaged.
My other item may be known to others, but I had never come across it.
There is a collection at the Library of Congress entitled “Manuscripts in the Libraries of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchates in Jerusalem“. It consists of microfilms of manuscripts, in Greek, Syriac, Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Armenian. The webpage suggests that there are “1,009” items, which seems incredible if true.
The microfilm images are of variable quality, as ever. But what a resource!
