>> Female Speaker: From the library
of Congress in Washington DC.
>> Mary Jane Deeb: This is
a change in the program.
Doctor Levon Avdoyan [assumed
spelling] will not be able
to moderate the panel.
He's just had the flu and so,
I invited Doctor Marius Deeb,
[assumed spelling] my husband,
[laughter] to come and
moderate this panel.
Marius Deeb holds a BA and MA from
American University of Beirut,
and a doctorate from
Oxford University.
He has written extensively, and is
writing a book on Eastern Christians
of the Mid East, going back
2000 years, so it was fitting
that he should moderate
this panel on Assyrians
and birth of Christianity.
So, now, we need the speakers
on this panel to join us.
And, they will be introduced.
>> Marius Deeb: Thank you Mary Jane.
I'll follow exactly the
order which is in the panel,
starting with Doctor
Mark Dixon -- Dickens.
Which the panel is, of
course, as you know,
composed of three panelists.
Dr. Mark Dickens is a Kings
University [inaudible]
and former [inaudible] and religious
studies program at the University
of Alberta, where he took
also his researches --
he researches the connection
between [inaudible] Christianity
in Central Asia, including
[inaudible] sources.
He was part of the
research team at SAIS,
School of advanced international
studies, University of London.
The [inaudible] from Western
China, and [inaudible]
from the Berlin [inaudible]
collection.
So, [inaudible] Dickens.
>> Dr. Mark Dickens: There you go.
Thank you very much
for the opportunity
to speak at this symposium.
This talk will focus on a time
when a church of the east,
which is the name I will use
to refer to what is now known
as the Assyrian Church of the
East, was not a national church,
but rather an international church.
I'd like to start with a quotation
from patriarch Timothy the first,
writing in 792 or 93, to
the monks of the Monastery
of Marmaronen, the
modern Maronite's.
For behold in all the lands of
Babel, Baghdad, Parse, Persia,
and [inaudible], Assyria,
and in all the eastern lands
and amongst [inaudible], Indians,
and indeed amongst [inaudible],
the Chinese, amongst
[inaudible], the Tibetans,
and likewise amongst [inaudible],
the Turks, and in all the domains
under this patriarchal throne, that
one who is this half of hypostasis,
in other words, Christ, is
proclaimed indeed in different
and diverse lands and
races and languages.
So, in this topical travel, east
to central Asia, looking at people
and places under the patriarchal
throne of the church of the east
between the second and
the fifteenth centuries.
Central Asia is sandwiched between
Iran, India, China, and Russia,
comprised of modern territories of
northern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,
and Kirgizstan, [inaudible]
and inner Mongolia, both
of the latter two in China,
and many scholars would include
Mongolia with that, as well.
Central Asia includes some of the
tallest mountains in the world,
bounded as it is to the
south by the Hindu Kush.
[inaudible] and [inaudible]
mountain ranges as well
as the [inaudible] range
that divides the former
Soviet Central Asia
from Chinese Central Asia,
contains a huge variety
of land forms including some
of the most awe-inspiring
vistas in the world.
Like here, the Orkhon
Valley in Mongolia,
the original homeland
of the Turkic people.
It also comprises some
of the harshest desserts
and lowest depressions on Earth.
Places like the Gobi Desert, in
Mongolia, the Turpan Depression,
and the Forbidden [inaudible]
Desert in Western China.
Although there are places
where adequate water supply
and good soils make
agriculture possible,
the economy has typically been
based on pastural nomadism
and transcontinental commerce,
along with trade network,
now called the Silk Road.
Silk Road refers to a network
of trade routes connecting China
with the Mediterranean
via Central Asia.
Heading west through the
Gansu or Hexi Corridors,
it splits into three branches at
the eastern end of the Tarim Basin.
Two routes skirt the Taklamakan
Desert meeting up at Kashgar,
in the west from whence various
routes lead or led south and west.
The Silk Road was actually the core
of the extensive transcontinental
and indeed, intercontinental trade,
which took place during antiquity
and the Middle Ages, enabling
not only goods like silk, horses,
slaves, glass and paper, but
also art, technology, philosophy
and religion to travel between
Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Central Asia has historically been
home to speakers of Indo-European,
Turkic, or Mongolic languages.
By way of example, this
linguistic diversity can be seen
in the 20 plus languages and
20 plus scripts found at Turpan
in China including here, examples of
Sogdian, Mongolian, Middle Persian
in the Manichaean scripts,
Bactrian in the Hephthalite script,
and [inaudible]in the [inaudible]
script shown in this slide.
Central Asia is also
religiously diverse.
Native to the area are
both Zoroastrianism
and Animism or Shamanism.
Those are both problematic terms
from an academic perspective
but useful nonetheless.
Practiced by the Iranian
speaking and the Turkic
or Mongolian speaking
peoples respectively.
Four major missionary
religions were introduced
into Central Asia along
the Silk Road network.
Buddhism from India and
Monachism from Iran,
in addition to Christianity
and Islam, of course,
both of which we'll be
discussing in this talk.
It was from Persia that Syriac
Christianity spread eastward
into Central Asia.
Our first references come from
Bardaisan's "Book of the Laws
of Countries," from about year
196, which mentions Christians
in Beth-Kashan, which
refers to the Kushan empire
in Bactria Afghanistan present
in the first and second century.
The Syriac of the doctrine of the
apostles written probably about 250,
mentions country in the East
being evangelized by [inaudible],
very well known in the
Church of the East as sort
of the original apostle, even as
far as "the land of Gog, and Magog"
but no specific location is given.
You can see a map there
where Gog and Magog are
in the lower corner behind the
mountains that often trapped them.
More tangibly, the Synodican
Orientale of the Church
of the East [inaudible]
records informs us of bishops
from [inaudible] and
[inaudible], now in Turkmenistan
and Afghanistan respectively at
the Senate of [inaudible] in 424.
Due to his location on the Eastern
flank of the Persian empire,
Merv was extremely strategic
city, first for the Persians,
and later for the Muslims.
It was also a key station post for
missions sent out by The Church
of the East, into Central Asia.
According to a legend,
[inaudible] in Syria, Sogdian,
and Christian Arabic texts.
Christianity was established
in Merv by Mar Abba.
Here we see examples of his
name used as a personal name
in the [inaudible]
inscriptions at the top.
I'll talk more about that
later, and founded several
of the Christian manuscripts
from Turpan.
Merv and Herat continued to
play vital roles in the growth
and expansion of The Church
of the East for centuries.
Only a few Christian artifacts
have been found in and around Merv.
A large building excavated
there, called [inaudible],
has been interpreted
as a Christian church,
but this is disputed by some.
[inaudible] in the [inaudible]
Christian topography,
written in the middle sixth century
describes Christian communities
and clergy amongst the Bactrians and
Huns, referring to the Hephthalites
who ruled in the fifth and
sixth centuries, north and south
of the Oxus, or Amu Darya river, and
you will see why I have a picture
of Mar Abba, the Bishop
[inaudible] right now.
The biography of Mar Abba, this is
the first patriarch by that name,
Mar Abba the first, describes
how the Hephthalite ruler sent a
Hephthalite Christian priest
to [inaudible] the first,
around 550 requesting that the
patriarch Mar Abba ordain him
as a bishop of the whole
kingdom of the Hephthalites.
The patriarch did this,
and as the account says,
joy increased amongst
the people, [inaudible].
So, the Hephthalites bishop's
seat was probably in Badghis,
or [inaudible]- an
important Hepthalite center,
now in North West Afghanistan.
It -- referred to in the Senate
of [inaudible] the first in 585,
which also mentions
for the first time,
a metropolitan named [inaudible].
By this time, however, the
Hephthalites have been conquered
by the Persians and Turks.
From Bactria, south of the
Amu Darya, or the Oxus River,
Christianity spread northward
into Sogdia or Sogdiana,
the homeland of the Sogdians,
speakers of an Eastern
Middle Iranian language.
The heartland of the Sogdians
included the cities of Sami Khan
and Bukhara, but their cultural
influence extended north
into [inaudible] valley,
and to Chache, or Chache,
the ancient name of [inaudible].
Indeed, their influence spread
along the trade routes into China.
This mural from Afrasiyab,
the ancient site of Samarkand,
now Uzbekistan, dates from around
the year 660 and depicts Sogdians,
Turks, Koreans, Chinese, and
others very clearly showing the
multicultural world that Central
Asians lived in at that time.
Now one of the questions we have is
when did Samarkand
receive a metropolitan,
meaning an arch bishop?
[inaudible] suggests
several patriarchs
who might have established a
metropolitan for Samarkand,
but they are either too
early, coming from the fifth
or sixth century, or too late,
coming from the eight century.
By contrast, another
Christian writer,
[inaudible] says it took
place during the patriarchy
of [inaudible].
Unfortunately, he doesn't tell
us which of the three patriarchs
by that name he means, but
they all come from the sixth
or seventh century, so we can
assume it was during that time.
Now, these were turbulent
times, as we have the eastern
and western Turkic
Khaganates, the Chinese,
the Persian Sassanian empire,
and then, coming on the scene,
the Arab [inaudible],
all competing for power
in the region of Central Asia.
Around this time, the
Byzantine author,
[inaudible] mentions Turks captured
by the Persians in the year 591,
who had had crosses tattooed on
their foreheads by the advice
of Christians to ward
off the plague.
Around the same time, we hear from
the Syriac Khuzestan Chronicle
about the conversion and
baptism of a minor Turkic ruler
and his army somewhere
around the year 644
by the metropolitan of Merv.
This was accompanied by a display of
[inaudible] Turkic priests, right.
It's quite an interesting account.
Now we come to the [inaudible]
Stele, or the Nastorian Stele,
as it's sometimes referred
to, dated to 781.
This records the mission
of [inaudible] dispatched
by patriarch [inaudible]
the second, to China.
And it would have traveled
through central Asia before
arriving in China in 635.
Most of the names in Syriac script
on the Stele are standard
Syriac names, Adam, Abraham,
Zach, that sort of thing.
But there are also several middle
Persian names that you can see
on there, indicating that members
of the mission were
Middle Persian background.
By contrast, the donor
of the Stele, his father,
his name was Yaz Bozid [assumed
spelling], good Middle Persian name,
and his father was
from Bahl in Bactria.
Another [inaudible] found
in China a little bit later,
from the ninth century
describes a Christian community
in the other capital of Luoyang.
And here, based on the surnames,
we know that all the people involved
were from the Sogdian or places
like Bukhara or Samarkand.
So, the Arab conquests
of the Persian empire lasted really
only a little bit over two decades
until the death of Shah
Yazdgerd the third in 651.
It took much longer to
bring Central Asia north
of the Amu Darya under control.
Turning first to Bukhara,
Narshakhi's "History of Bukhara,"
which, by the way, was translated by
Eden's late husband, Richard Frye,
mentions a Christian church
converted into a mosque,
after Arab forces captured
Bukhara in 709.
This image is actually of the
mausoleum of the [inaudible],
an important Persian dynasty.
We really don't have
any Christian artifacts
from that time, from Bukhara.
But we do have artifacts from
similar periods from the seventh
or eighth centuries, from other
places nearby including this
[inaudible] or [inaudible]
from [inaudible], which
is now Tajikistan.
This has portions of psalms one
to two written on it in Syriac,
but it's got spelling errors,
which indicate the scribe was
probably a Sogdian speaker.
And on the right, very interesting,
a processional cross from Herat,
or at least it mentions
the Church of Herat,
inscribed in [inaudible]
or Middle Persian.
And this can prolyl date --
this can probably be dated
to the mid eighth century.
Speaking of [inaudible], just
very briefly, I'll mention India.
There are a number of ninth
century crosses in India
with Middle Persian inscriptions
reminding us of the long ties
between the Church of the East
in the Persian empire,
and in southern India.
Returning to Central Asia, there's
evidence of Christian adaptation
to local Zoroastrian customs,
in the use of ossuaries
to contain the bones
of the deceased.
And they've been discovered in
various places, including this one
from Afrasiab in now
modern day Samarkand.
Also of interest, again, from the
same period, about the seventh
or eighth century, there are large
number of coins with crosses on them
from -- that have been discovered
in Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent,
and elsewhere, and these suggest
that there were Christian rulers
at this time, both before
and after the Arab invasion
since only rulers can mint coins.
Also of Sogdian prominence,
there's several silver plate
with biblical scenes dating
from between the seventh
and the tenth centuries.
These have been found up in the
Ural region of what's now Russia.
The one on the left probably
depicts siege of Jericho.
The one on the right, with
Syriac script written on it,
shows scenes from the life,
death, and resurrection of Christ.
Well the [inaudible], the
first Caliphate were overthrown
by the Abbasids in 750.
The Abbasids then went on to defeat
the Chinese at The Battle of Talas,
in what's now Kirgizstan in 751.
Thereby securing control of
Central Asia for some time
until the ninth century when
things began to break down
and other dynasties rose.
And so now we've gotten back to
the time of Timothy the First.
And just revisiting the
letter I mentioned earlier,
there's two letters in
which he mentions the Turks.
In the first, from the 782 to 783,
he refers to the King of the Turk,
[inaudible], who, along with most of
his territory, has become acquainted
with Christianity and the fact
that he's this king was asked
for a metropolitan to be appointed.
In the second letter,
written ten years after that,
792, Timothy speaks there.
The spirit having anointed a
metropolitan for the Turks,
and the fact that he's getting ready
to anoint one for the Tibetans.
We don't actually know if
the latter ever took place.
So, who were these Turks
that Timothy referred to?
There's several Turkic tribes
in Central Asia at the time
as this image from a
computer game indicates.
You know, you use what you can find.
It was probably the [inaudible] that
you see right there in the center.
And that does accurately
represent where they lived,
on the step north of
what's now Tashkent.
Several Muslim historians describe
how the [inaudible] capital
of Talas, now Taraz and
Kazakhstan was captured in 893
by the [inaudible] ruler whose
mausoleum we saw earlier,
after which the church there was
converted into a cathedral mosque.
Various Christian artifacts
have been discovered in Talas,
which support the idea of
a Christian presence there,
including this clay pot, which has
the names Peter, spelled Petra,
not Petros, as one
usually finds, and Gabriel.
And again, sort of an
abbreviated form of what --
of the name as one usually finds.
And also the finding of a clay
vessel with a cross on it.
So, not much, but at
least indications
that there were Christians
indeed in the area.
We don't know, as I said, if Timothy
ever consecrated a metropolitan
for the Tibetans, but there
is a Sogdian inscription dated
to the mid-ninth century
from [inaudible]
in Northern Pakistan,
a company by a cross.
The inscription probably
based on the contents,
it was left by a Buddhist, but
the cross was definitely left
by a Christian traveling between
Central Asia and India or Tibet.
And that map shows you where
[inaudible] is located, right?
In the middle in present
day Jammu Kashmir.
Also of interest, is a cross
drawn on a Tibetan manuscript,
with three pearls on
the tip of each arm.
This is very typical of
crosses traditionally used
in the Church of the East.
The manuscript itself contains a
Buddhist phrases, so we don't know,
was the cross an indication
of the scribe's faith?
Was it actually, perhaps,
somebody else?
Not a Buddhist transcribing
this manuscript?
Or had he seen it somewhere?
We just don't know.
There are numerous other references
to Christianity in Central Asia
from the ninth and tenth centuries.
[inaudible] of Merv, who actually
was a bishop of [inaudible],
in Northern Iraq, but
came from Merv,
was a very important
biblical commentator
in the Church of the East.
Muslim geographers also refer to
Christians, like [inaudible] writing
in the early tenth century, talks
about the doors on the Church
of Samarkand on his list of the
most impressive sites on Earth.
Another Muslim scholar by the name
of El Biruni [assumed spelling],
who spent most of his
life in Central Asia,
including his native Juarezum,
which you can see on the map there,
gives us important information
about Christian festivals
from the Nestorians, as he
calls them, and the Melkites,
who were the Syriac
speaking Greek Orthodox
in Juarezum from the year 1000.
I'm going to skip that
one to move to this slide.
Writing in 988, the Muslim
geographer [inaudible],
mentions three Christian sites in
Central Asia, including a monastery
in Sogdia recently excavated near
Urgut, not far from Samarkand.
And there're dozens of
Syriac inscriptions left
on cliffs near the excavated
church building suggesting
that many Christians visited the
vicinity and held this vigil there.
Here you can see a shady scholar of
ill repute attempting to make a name
for himself by reading
these inscriptions.
There's one of the inscriptions,
the name Ab Desho [assumed
spelling] is inscribed
in one of the three caves.
An eighth to ninth century bronze
[inaudible] with local scenes
on it was found near Urgut,
actually, about a century ago.
And on the right, you can see
a mold for casting crosses,
metal crosses found nearby.
Amongst the Syriac inscriptions
and Syriac script is this
beautiful little cross.
Next to the word [foreign language],
Persian word meaning luck,
or fortune, or blessing.
Not surprisingly, we have wearable
crosses of gold, silver, bronze,
copper, nephrite, and bone,
dated from the seventh
to the fourteenth centuries
that have been found
throughout the area of Sogdiana.
There's abundant evidence
of Christians also
around the Tarim Basin
in Chinese Central Asia
from the tenth to eleventh
centuries.
This satellite image shows
the vast Taklimakan desert,
which makes up the
center of the Tarim Basin.
This is a site of the -- what would
have been a Christian monastery,
from which come the Turpan
documents, Christian documents.
A couple examples there, a salter
in Middle Persian on the left,
and a salter in Syriac on the right.
And I've been told
that my time is up.
I'll just end by saying that these
are two other Turpan documents,
on the left, a document in Sogdian
script containing part of a hymn
and a translation into Sogdian of
the Nicene Creed and on the right,
a Syriac salter, which is actually
transcribed or transliterated
into Reeger script because the monks
at that time could no
longer read Syriac,
but they still needed
to recite the liturgy.
More that I would have liked to
shown you, but the time has elapsed,
and so I will turn it
over to the next speaker.
[ Applause ]
>> Marius Deeb: Our next
speaker is Professor Professor
Jonathan Loopstra.
He's Associate Professor of
History at the University
of Northwestern in [inaudible].
He previously taught at the Medical
University of Iraq [inaudible]
and at The Capital
University in Columbus, Ohio.
He researches the literary and
religious culture of the [inaudible]
and late antiquity, with
particular focus on [inaudible]
and their recitation of the Bible
in East Syrian Christianity.
His published works
include the first volume
of an East Syriac Masora,
an East Syrian manuscript
of the Syriac Masora dated 1899,
which was published in 2014/2015.
Professor Loopstra.
[ Applause ]
>> Prof. Jonathan Loopstra:
All right, Thank you again
for the organizers, and for Doctor
Eden for inviting me to give a talk
on this subject of the
transmission of ancient knowledge.
When she first invited
me to talk on this,
I was rather flummoxed actually.
As you'll find, there's a lot of
material here with the transmission
of ancient knowledge in Syriac.
She assured me she
wanted an overview,
and so as I tell my
students in survey classes,
you're going to get an
overview at 30,000 feet.
But I hope I'll show you some of
the peripheries and directions
of the transmission of
this ancient knowledge.
Reasons why this knowledge is
transmitted in the ancient world.
So, looking to the
region located as a word,
geographically and politically.
Syriac heritage, Christian
communities have always found
themselves at the crossroads
of cultures, at the periphery
for the transmission of knowledge.
Of course, as you see here,
part of the reason for this was
that Syriacs became communities
were found on both sides
of the shifting borders
of the ancient world.
For our topic today, this means that
it was a fairly easy then, for ideas
and knowledge to pass from one
part of the Syriac speaking world
to the other, across
political and cultural borders.
This should also suggest, and I say
this Syriac was a valuable medium
for the transmission
of ancient knowledge.
In part because Syriac,
if you think of it,
has never been the
official language of empire,
at least in late antiquity.
Syriac was not associated
with a single empire, say,
as Latin was with the Romans, or the
concept of Romanitas, or roman-ness.
This freedom from association
might have allowed for knowledge
in Syriac garb to cross regional
and political boundaries
with relative fluidity.
In addition, it might be suggested
that this lack of state support
for the translations into Syriac,
may have also played a role
in determining which
works were translated
into Syriac, and which were not.
That is, without state support,
Syriac scribes may have tended
to translate items
that mattered to them,
and not items that
mattered to the authorities.
As my colleague [inaudible]
of the University
of Tokyo has recently suggested,
this might be a helpful model
in understanding why and how Syriac
scribes preserved some ancient
works, but not others.
And the example he gives is
the birth of translations
of geographical material
we find in Syriac.
Possibly because they had not
the need to be able to rule
over long and complex regions.
So, which do we go first?
Let's look at the types of knowledge
that we begin to find in Syriac.
And at first it might
be worth considering,
as I put it here, echoes
of antiquity.
That is, world views,
concepts, genres.
This Syriac scribes
inherited in part
and parcel of the ancient world.
If you will, ideas they
breathed in with the air
in the early periods
of Christianity.
So, first, let's look at
one area they inherited
in the ancient Mesopotamian world.
And we said quite a
bit about this today.
One example, one fine illustration
of this are so called disputes,
or dialogue poems many of
you might be familiar with.
If you're not familiar with them,
Sebastian Brock, [assumed spelling]
at Oxford, has made a case for their
connection to ancient Mesopotamia.
His 1979 article, with
the terrific title,
called "From Sumer to Syriac."
You might remember this.
We have over 50 of these,
again, quite often, fun poems,
dialogue poems which survived.
Often they put different figures.
Two antagonists, the Tigres
and Euphrates River, or say,
death and Hades against each other
in this fascinating type of genre.
This genre is continually
used, even in [inaudible]
as some of you might know today.
Another echo, if you will,
of ancient knowledge I might
consider are Jewish elements
of cultural interpretation.
And this is not surprising,
because as we know,
early Christians were surrounded
by ancient Jewish communities
throughout this region.
In fact, second century translation
of the Bible from Hebrew,
known as the Peshitta,
incorporates for some early books,
elements of this Jewish
interpretation.
And as many of you might also know,
our earliest Syriac
Christian interpreters,
such as the East Syrian
[inaudible], or [inaudible],
or Ephram of [inaudible]
also incorporates elements
of Jewish [inaudible]
and interpretation.
Thirdly, another echo of antiquity,
it might be worth remembering,
is that Syriac speakers were heirs
to the age-old traditions of writing
and speaking the language
of Aramaic,
as often been mentioned here.
We should keep in mind then,
that by the time the dialect
of Syriac emerged as a written
language, Aramaic had been in use
for well over a millennium.
And this is significant for
what we're talking about today
because in some ways this
antiquity of Syriac is different
than when compared to
other Christian languages
of the near east.
So, for example, in Armenia and
Georgia and to a certain extent,
[inaudible], the development
of written language is closely
associated with the arrival
of Christianity and
Christianization.
Syriac speakers on the other
hand, inherited a language
and linguistic traditions that
crossed regional boundaries
and have been translating --
already transmitting knowledge
for well over a millennium.
So, it's a unique difference.
And they knew this.
Just some examples -- Syriac
is first called [inaudible],
because it originally, we believe
[inaudible] in the regions,
and this is just a little example
of graffiti I shot a few years ago
when I visited this
town in southern Turkey.
And if you look up on
top of this pillar,
some of you might know
it from the town.
A pillar that overlooks the
city you'll find [inaudible].
You also find some very
famous old mosaics.
So, for example, here,
you find Syriac,
or a derivative upon this mosaic
of Orpheus, again, in Greco Roman.
If you look below, you have
another mosaic in Persian garb.
So, you have again,
at the cross roads
of ancient cultures
and civilization.
It should also be mentioned
along the same lines
that Syriac preserves
some of the classics
of ancient Aramaic heritage.
Most notable, for example,
part of the story of Ahikar,
the Assyrian sage, which is
preserved in Syriac translations
in five different recensions.
And we could also mention
other legends, folk legends,
Alexander legends and
[inaudible] others.
And it should be mentioned on
these slides that The Church
of the East specifically,
this Persian
or Eastern influence is particularly
important because we spend a lot
of time talking about it because
it means that they evolved
in an Iranian context and this
affects parts of liturgy and parts
of interpretation in the early
days as opposed to what happened
in the west Syrian
communities as well.
Other areas of knowledge
preservation --
it should also be mentioned that
Syriac Christians helped to preserve
and record the histories
and traditions
of neighboring Christian
communities.
So, for example, we have Byzantine
transmission, we have Armenian,
[inaudible] communities and even
[inaudible] Indian communities,
as Mark pointed out,
that are transmitted.
And without these Syriac sources,
we would often be the poorer
for our knowledge of
neighboring communities.
Much of this has to do
with the work of Syriac
and East Syrian historians.
And if we have more time, we could
talk at length about the importance
of these types of chronicles and
world histories in the transmission
of knowledge, say, the coming of the
Mongols, as Mark was talking about.
Or even the arrival of
the Islamic movement.
For example, the chronicle
of [inaudible] you see here,
a late chronicle, eleventh century.
Fascinating.
This is actually universal
chronicle.
When you look at the manuscript
in the British Library,
you'll find that it actually
contains something akin to footnotes
to over 60 sources, only
30 of those, I believe,
that we still have -- that
we still know what they are.
So, again, these are
records of early traditions.
But, if you think about it, what
we've talked about so far means
that the Syriac community was
heir to ancient Aramaic traditions
of the east, then the majority
though, of Syriac translations
from ancient works are actually from
Greek, not from other languages.
And why is this?
And there's a number of reasons
for this, but let mention two.
For one thing, as Christians, Syriac
transfers naturally wanted access
to many of the Christian writings
in the Western Greek world.
Then, a quite different perspective
than the situation in the east,
where there are fewer Christian
works written in Persian.
Secondly, y the fifth century,
Greek was considered a high-status
language of the elite, that is,
a high profile of Greek learning,
combined with the movement
of Christians to the non-Greek
speaking areas, eventually led them
to begin translating Greek -- even
secular Greek material into Syriac.
So, as early as the fifth century
we have non-Christian Greek works
beginning to be translated using
their ethical works, collections,
the same literature,
[inaudible], geographic names,
even "Aesop's Fables", sixth
century BC, which is preserved
in three Syriac manuscripts.
And one of these actually claims
sixty-four of these sayings.
So, we have a spread of these
non-Christian works being translated
by the fifth century.
And should be noted
that although many
of these works are
being translated first
in Byzantium territories,
it quickly moved east.
And some have made the point that
this was aided by the movement
of east Syrians after the counts
of [inaudible] and closing
of the school of [inaudible] in
the fifth century towards the east.
And we often know that Persian
rulers, and officials welcomed many
of these scholars and
translators to the east.
One of the key figures in this
movement was a west Syrian
by the name of Sergius [inaudible].
Again, located in North Syria,
we're later told by [inaudible]
that he translated over 30 works
of Galen, the ancient Greek writer.
And in fact, we're told that he
used text books that were prevalent
in the medical school of
Alexandria at the time.
Some of his translations of
Galen are actually addressed
to a certain [inaudible],
and again there's divisions
in the scholarly community about
who this is, but it's been suggested
that he was bishop on the
Diyala River, if you know that,
it's near the border between
modern day Iraq and Iran.
So, if this is true, we already
know that even in this early stage,
we have the movement of Galen
into the east by sixth century.
One fascinating example of
this, again, we could talk more
at length later on
if you're interested.
This is a newer finding, this is the
[inaudible], which means the text
that you see here on my right,
is actually super imposed
over the earlier texts and erased.
And the text on the right are hymns,
later hymns, but if you notice
on my left, you'll find that when
they applied ultra violet light
to this manuscript, they discovered
underneath, low and behold, what?
An early fifth century translation
of Galen's pharmacological work,
"Mixtures and Powers
of Simple Drugs."
Again, we could talk
at length about this.
There's an article on this.
But why is this important?
A, it's important because this
Syriac text underneath predates any
existing Greek texts.
Second, it also shows how
later east Syrian translators
like [inaudible] may have used
Sergius's earlier translation
together with other Greek works
in order to translate into Arabic.
Again, some fascinating
things going on with this.
Where did these types of
early medical texts go?
Briefly, they went to many
of the east Syrian schools.
One of the most famous
for the reception
of medical works was [inaudible]
in the east, as you see here.
This becomes well, very
famous for a medical school
that develops particularly
under the Abbasid era.
But we're also given clues
that [inaudible] the first,
encouraged these refugees from
the west to translate Greek
and Syriac text to the
[inaudible] in this early period.
We also have indications that in
this school that developed here,
we have texts coming from
India, possibly China, right?
To come in and be translated.
One of the examples of this in the
seventh century is the India tale
of Khalela Wudemna, [assumed
spelling] which makes its way
into [inaudible], and
then eventually
into Syriac and other forms.
So, again, a fascinating movement.
Moving on, we have
other Greek works,
obviously besides medical works
that are being translated,
particularly in philosophy
and logic.
Here again, Sergius of
[inaudible] is an important figure
in this movement.
But we also should mention we
have East Syrian figures, such as,
the [inaudible] Mar Abba and
also, a certain Paul the Persian,
who were writing commentaries
on Aristotle's Organon as well.
And so, you see, for
example, Paul the Persian,
we believe that his earliest
text is written actually
in Middle Persian, not Syriac.
He's a very interesting figure.
We don't know a lot about him.
But all the same, we have a
lot of different commentaries.
If you look on this chart
of the -- of Aristotle in --
the first part of Aristotle's
work in Syria.
Why is this?
And there's a number of
different ideas that are floating
around about why Syriac
writers were fascinated
by these early logical texts.
Past scholars have argued,
and it's just the assumption,
that a primary motivation
for the translation
of these Greek logical works, was,
as one scholar [inaudible] wrote,
"weapons for the theological
dialectics."
And yes, in other words, in
this here Aristotle was put
into a service
of the inter-confessional
debates of the Christology.
That's one view.
More recently than King [inaudible]
has questioned this assumption
that Greek learning
was initially used
for polemical confessional uses.
As King argues, evidence
instead, tends to suggest
that the pre-Islamic use
of philosophy was more
pedagogically oriented
in schools and other settings.
Interesting example of this is
actually from a west Syrian,
Severus Sebokht, another
translator who explains in one
of his works, why he is translating.
And this is worth quoting in full.
He says this, it's
kind of arguments,
"The Babylonians were the
first inventors of knowledge
and not the Greeks,
as all the writings
of the Greeks themselves testify,
and after the Babylonians,
came the Egyptians,
and then the Greeks.
I do not think that
anyone will dispute
that the Babylonians
were the Syrians.
Those who say that the
Syrians can know nothing
at all are in great error.
Seeing then, that the Syrians
were the first inventors
and teachers of these things."
So, Severus then, the right to steal
from the Greeks, has less to do
with his defense of a particular
Christology, and more to do
with his right as one of
Syriac heritage, to preserve
and retain knowledge that was
built upon his own ancient roots.
So, it should be mentioned as
well, that many of these works went
to the East Syrian schools.
And I want to mention
another school in particular,
known more to the north,
The School of Nisibis,
in which we have records
of [inaudible] logic.
Just show you briefly, this
[inaudible], still on the border,
this picture I took a few years ago.
Still on the border between
Turkey and Syria even today
as it was Roman Persian
ancient world.
And if you look here, where at
the ancient Church of [inaudible],
and if you look, my
colleagues there are looking
at the lentil of the church.
And even here, on the lentil, you'll
see, we have Syriac on one side,
and what do we have further on?
Again, Greek writing on the other.
So, again, this is a cross-ways
of cultural languages
throughout this region.
It is studied at the
School of Nisibis,
and Adam Becker [assumed
spelling] has argued
that a mere platonic Aristotle
was in his words, "retro-fitted"
to older pre-existing and
Syriac intellectual frameworks.
This is a pretty bad
illustration, but I was thinking
about this the other day when
I was painting my basement.
In this case, the Greek Aristotle
will be the final paint layer
to beautify.
You put over the solid primer
of this Syriac tradition
of Ephram and others.
This is a bad illustration, I know.
A better illustration might be,
again, that this can be found
in the system of logical
reading marks we find
in the Syriac Bible
-- East Syriac Bible.
And this is also very
important because it develops
into Lexicographer studies,
which goes to impact
other language tradition.
Let me give you an example.
These reading dots you see here
on the Syriac Bible were used
for punctuation, [inaudible]
intonation, and meanings and stress.
And scholars still debate whether
some of these marks first originated
with earlier Greek models, or based
on an ancient Aramaic
heritage of notation.
But we believe that Joseph
Hoziah [assumed spelling],
an East Syriac [inaudible] and
teacher of reading in Nisibis,
appears to have taken the basics
of this borrowed earlier tradition
and put it into a form adding
Greek notation as well.
So, for example, in many of these
reading marks, we find species
of discourse, also found
in [inaudible] commentaries
on the enunciate sentence
derived from Aristotle.
So, in other words, what Joseph was
doing in the sixth century here,
was revising his sixth century
Syriac notation in part,
on Aristotelian terminology.
Let me give you an example of this.
This is Galatians 4:23-30, from one
of our earliest Syriac New Testament
manuscripts in the British Library.
We can see here, many of
these dotted reading marks.
For example, here, [inaudible]
that connects to clauses.
By the way, none of these are
in published editions
of the Assyrian Bible.
You see here [foreign
language] mark an exclamation.
And also, then, you see here what?
This other mark.
The [foreign language],
which is actually the marker
of the [inaudible] sentence.
And when you look at how the
Persians introductional logic,
is commentary on Aristotle, we find
that this is the exact term used
in his commentary for
Aristotle's logical dialectic.
So, again, we find [inaudible]
being brought into use,
even in the reading traditions
combined with ancient Aramaic
or Greek traditions of doxology or
recitation of the scriptural text.
We look at other earlier East Syrian
manuscripts, we find the same thing.
So, for example, here,
Morgan Library in New York,
regular has the [inaudible] --
remember this is the same word used
for the Aristotelian texts, and
again, we have similar dots used
for the recitation of the Bible.
Again, so, what does this mean?
It means that we have,
again, these reading dots
in the Syriac Bible itself,
they're brought forward
with the native Aramaic
influences, modified slightly
by the introduction of
Greek philosophical concepts
to form this hybrid system.
And many scholars believe this
system of dots was later adopted
by Sogdians, but also by
Hebrews and also possibly
by Arabic linguists as well.
So, this leads us to
the Islamic era.
Right? So, the Islamic
era, this is where we begin
to see the appropriation
of Greek philosophy
into professional debates.
And this also leads us, with
as Mark said, [inaudible],
Timothy the first,
and in his letters,
this is where we find the
beginnings of the understanding
of the Greco-Arabic translation
movement, which eventually,
you know, will result in the
translation of hundreds of works
of Greek literature into Arabic
through many times the
medium of Syriac as well.
And Timothy himself
attests to the prevalence
of Greek literature in his world.
So for example, in his letter to
the students in Mosul, at one point,
he writes, "The Syriacs have
become inheritors of logic
and of orthodox teaching," that
is logic, Aristotelian logic,
many of the works which he
lays out in his letters,
but also orthodox teaching,
by which he means the writings
of the Greeks are brought
into it in Arabic.
Lastly, we leave you
with Hunayn ibn Ishaq,
the far end of this
translation movement.
So in his works, again,
over 100 different works
that translate the
knowledge of the Greeks
into Arabic using earlier
sources such as [inaudible],
and eventually his own
works will be published
in the libraries of the West.
So this brings us full circle then
back to Greece and back to Europe
where Hunayn ibn Ishaq becomes
an acknowledged medical authority
and doctor in his own right.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Marius Deeb: Our next speaker is
Tala Jarjour, is Assistant Professor
in the Department of
Music Anthropology
at the University of Notre Dame.
She spent academic year 2015-2016
at ale University as a Senior Fellow
at the Institute of Sacred Music
and Visiting Assistant Professor
in the Music Department
in the Spring of 2016.
Her forthcoming book
is under contract
with Oxford University
Press with the working title
"Chanting Blessed Edessa,
Syriac Spirituality
and the Economy of
Musical Aesthetics".
She will be a speaker at the Gates
Cambridge Biannual 2016 Event
on a panel titled "Heritage
in Peril".
Now the two speakers -- the first
speaker talked about the church
of the East and the -- and
along the Silk Road Network,
and the second church of the East
and transmission of
ancient knowledge.
Now it culminates the third
speaker with Syriac chant
as a cultural heritage, rightly so.
Please?
[ Applause ]
>> Mrs. Tala Jarjour: Thank you
very much for the introduction.
It's -- and for the
invitation to be here.
It really is a great pleasure.
Yes, indeed, my talk will
just fast forward in history
to the current time and to
current concerns about the future.
So we're moving forward
very quickly in time.
I'm just going to take a
second to set things up here
so that I can put my computer --
if this can move backwards
just -- oh, that's great.
Thank you.
Lovely.
Yeah, that's good.
Thank you very much.
Great. So I should also
apologize because we were supposed
to have somebody who would
give a chanting presentation
or a demonstration, but he was
unfortunately not able to come,
and I was informed of
that just as I arrived.
So I'm not going to sing, but
hopefully if there is time,
I will play an excerpt
at the very end.
I'd be happy to do so.
So what I would be doing today
is talking about Syriac chant
as cultural heritage from
the perspective of projects
of collection and preservation.
So there's a lot of concern
about the living communities,
and I should also give a very
brief caveat about the fact
that my specialty is Western Syriac
chant, so Syrian Orthodox chant.
But I'm hoping that my talk today
will be rather comprehensive.
So thus far, the typical way in
which Syriac chant has been treated
as cultural heritage has
been through a small number
of recording collections, most
of which belong to some form
of archival preservatory
[sic] undertaking or another.
In this context, the concept of
archive appears and is rather strong
and is more overarching
than it might be considered
in particular projects.
As such, I use it today in a general
sense in reference to existing forms
of Syriac chant, collection,
and preservation.
The concept of archive is
an independent discussion
in its own right, which I
will not have the chance
to fully address today.
What I -- what I do hope to
do, however, is pose questions.
I will not provide answers
simply because I don't have them.
But those are important questions
to state because my rationale
in thinking about cultural heritage
problematizes issues of meaning
and value, especially in relation
to the people whose heritage is
at stake and more specifically
to their pain.
I want to think about
creating collections
of a musical cultural heritage as
an undertaking that takes place
in conjunction with and
because of the pain of others.
So allow me to put forward
a number of questions
that information my interrogative
thoughts on the matter.
Those title-type statements,
as I said, will not be unpacked
in this -- in the next few minutes.
The issues they entail
are far too many,
but the following discussion
makes more sense in light of them.
The purpose of a music
collection or archive,
the reasons behind the
existence of an archive,
the politics of building an
archive, the ethics of election,
the politics of inclusion and
exclusion, the significance
of what is cast aside, why, by
whom, and how, the aesthetics
of preference, the economies of
choice, and the list goes on.
Take Walter Benjamin, for instance,
who created his own
personal archive.
According to him, the action
of archiving involves keen awareness
of, quote, strategic calculation
and ethos of an archivist,
both of which comprise
intentional components
of a constructed posterity.
On another note that happens
to come from Germany --
we are talking about
archives, after all --
archives are historical --
are a historical matter.
The creation of archives, such as
those of East Germany, for instance,
have a bearing on the development
of Eastern German cultural
history and scholarship.
Not only are the material
of such archives reflections
of the directions in which
this scholarship progresses.
They are part and parcel of the
construction of official histories
as well as the contemporary
understanding of complex issues
of the past, namely the
construction of the past.
But I digress.
Let me return to Syriac chant.
From a wide perspective,
my paper is concerned
with theorizing the
operation and context
in which Syriac chant has been
and is being documented, archived,
and as many would have
it, preserved.
The trend of safeguarding
the musical traditions
of Eastern Christianity
in general is not new.
Indeed, examples of it date back
to the earliest written accounts
on the subject, but
the sense of need
for safeguarding has
gained increasing urgency
in recent decades, more so in
the recent handful of years,
owing to the number
of recent conflicts
that have struck the Middle East,
leaving a particularly detrimental
effect on its Christians.
While I will not be -- while I will
not be putting particular emphasis
on Syriac chant -- I'm sorry --
while I will be putting particular
emphasis on Syriac chant,
my proposition applies to
Eastern Christian traditions
in general and possibly more.
Over the last 200 years or so, since
the first European written account
of this ancient Aramaic oral
tradition was published using music
transcriptions, many in
account have attempted
to capture its musical
sounds and norms.
Some accounts pursued
systematic analysis,
systematic as in systematic
musicology, for the purpose
of which they created
hundreds of transcriptions.
Examples are Husman
[assumed spelling]
and Jannan [assumed spelling],
while others deposited samples
of Syriac chant in sound
archive collections
such as the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv
and the Museo du Lome
[assumed spelling].
Whether with the explicit purpose
of creating an archive or not,
and this would apply to Eastern
Christian music as it would to any,
documenting or conserving a musical
tradition is a process involving a
number of tasks.
One of these tasks is selection.
Since it would be difficult to
include every piece and/or variation
of a piece in a given collection,
no matter how representative a
sample may be, it remains a sample
that is created by a process
of selection involving
election and elimination.
Choices such as what
goes in and what stays
out of any collection
may be informed
by a varying number of factors.
Those factors range from
the availability of material
to the accessibility of sources,
the ability or willingness
of source guardians, the
collector's technical agility
and available technological
capacity, personal
and collective taste,
philosophical approach,
ideas held to be important,
aesthetic considerations,
and the relative value of a selected
material, to name only a few.
One level of these decisions may
be made by the tradition bearers,
in the case of a -- of say a
vernacular musical tradition,
or by such source owners as
book or manuscript collectors,
both of which I implied
earlier under source guardians.
Another level of the decisive
selection process is the prerogative
of the collective --
collection builder.
Thus, one might imagine a
given musical collection
as a construction, constituted of
various elements which an architect
of sorts, the collector, selects and
puts together to form this thing he
or she will call a collection.
This process in create -- involves
a creative or a curatorial level
of decision making, which is
essentially a work of design.
So two main components
of the process
of creating collections
are selection and design.
Put together, selection and
design constitutes a process
of representation.
Now what I am concerned with today
is the point at which memory,
history, and experience interact
with the individual, the collective,
the process of collection, and
the collection as end product.
I look at this point in Syriac chant
through one particular
perspective, that of pain.
I want to ask questions pertaining
to conceptions of the authority
of representing musical
traditions, which fall now
in a severely endangered
cultural category.
Those cultural categories are
endangered because their bearers,
the Christians of the Middle
East, are facing dangers
to their existence as such.
At the risk of redundancy, I point
out that inherent to this state
of endangerment is a human
state of being, namely pain.
Put simply but not simplistically,
thinking about the authority
of representing cultural
heritage involves such questions
as who represents whom,
what, why, how, where,
by which means, and to what ends?
I shall hope to touch on
some of these questions
in the remaining minutes by offering
brief comments from philosophical
and archaeo -- and anthropological
works that have discussed issues
of archives, agency, and pain,
the three essential elements
to my discussion of the
authority of representation.
My aim is to contribute
to our thinking
about cultural representation, which
employs multifaceted perspectives
and does not shun the complexity
of the contexts from which
such projects extract the music, but
embrace it with aware sensibility,
or should I say sensitivity.
Let me turn next to the
what, the collection.
In this time and age of
digital media and ease
of information dissemination,
the creation of collections,
a task which once required
efforts on institutional
and even national levels, is now
fully feasible with modest means,
namely basic computing material
and a decent amount of dedication.
Take the case of Syriac chant,
which to my knowledge no single
library has yet attempted to compile
in any comprehensive sense.
With a simple Internet search,
one can find a staggering number
of websites offering diverse
choices of chant samples
in a variety of categories.
Looking at them, one is struck by
the so-called democratic character
of the process of collecting
this ancient Aramaic tradition.
Most websites -- most websites
containing collections are created
by individuals from their
private collections.
However, by going just a little
under the surface, one would notice
that most of these acts
of collecting, ordering,
and dissemination create an
archive or sorts, and in many cases,
the individual websites actually
state the explicit purpose
of creating an archive.
So here are some thoughts
from philosophy,
specifically from Derrida's
discussion on archive
and implication --
and the implication --
and its implication on authority.
By the way, Derrida's relevance
to the issue of archive, pain,
intimacy, and contestation
of ownership rights
and authority is a worthwhile matter
that I will also not
be able to get into.
In the opening of his
book "Archive Fever",
"Mal d'Archive" Secretary
Derrida writes, "Let us not begin
at the beginning, nor
even at the archive,
but rather at the word archive,
archive, and with the archive
of so familiar a word," end quote.
He then reminds his reader
that archei, the Greek word,
names at once the,
quote, commencement
and the commandment, end quote.
This name coordinates two principles
in one, the principle according
to nature or history, there
where things commence, physical,
historical, or archaeological
principle,
but also the principle according
to the law, there where men
and gods command, there
where authority,
social order are exercised.
In this place from which order
is given nomological principle.
So the idea of creating a collection
necessarily implies a claim
to authority, which brings
us to the question who.
The differences between a number of
the Syriani community -- between --
sorry -- a member of the Syriani
community creating an online archive
of their church songs and a Western
academic institution creating an
archive of the chant of
the Syriac speaking church,
for instance, is worth noting.
The full question in this case
is not only who is collecting,
but also whose music
are they collecting?
I will not go into post-colonial
issues, such as orientalism,
but I will suffice
the current discussion
with mentioning them
passingly, as I just did.
What I would like to
dwell on is the ethical,
or to complicate things a bit more,
the premise of authority inherent
to the process of representing
the pain of others.
To anchor my discussion
in relevant scholarship,
I refer to anthropologist
and theorist Talal Asad,
particularly his work
on agency and suffering.
In this article, Asad puts the
term "agency" under a new set
of analytical tests commonly used to
express the assumption by the weak,
the victim of a voice,
or an ability --
or of an ability of some active
resistance or mere resilience.
The term agency has been confined to
-- by anthropologists, Asad notes,
to assume self-empowerment
and responsibility
in giving agency a
triumphalist vision of history.
He criticizes this view and
says that rather than consider
that seeing agency within
individuals or groups who have been
on the receiving end of injustice,
disempowerment, or most importantly,
pain and suffering, as a
form of self-fulfillment,
triumphalism of liberated
individuals.
Agency can include creative forms
of existing through pain and,
as he puts it, ways to live sanely
in a state of inevitable suffering.
Agency in this sense is
not only not triumphalist.
It is also not passive or defeatist.
It is the way in which such
groups as the impoverished Shia
of Southern Lebanon command a
spirituality that embraces pain
through rituals based in mourning
and self-flagellation practices,
but also through forms of emotional
and social solidarity essential
to which is their combined
view of faith, suffering,
and active collective
forms of support.
In a similar vein, he sees
the emotional and moral affect
of cassette sermons in Cairo's
massive Muslim conscience
as the basis for a moral
construction of collective agency
in which suffering and
spirituality are part and parcel
of a pious ethical
form of existence.
Through such examples as the two
studies of Shia forms of piety
in Southern Lebanon and
the Islamic Counterpublics
of urban Cairo I just mentioned,
as it offers an interdisciplinary
analysis of a number of accounts
from mythology, literature,
ethnography, and religion,
shedding light on agency in history
as collective memories
of various local pasts.
In these states of existence and
collective creation of memories
and religious experience,
pain, representation, religion,
and the sense of the
collective feature prominently.
So let my tie things up
together to conclude.
Preserving cultural heritage
by creating historical sources
for an oral tradition that
is as steeped in history
as history itself is to many
akin to creating an archive,
a collection of sorts, a
collection of memories,
a collection of memories
and sounds of pain.
In embarking on such a process
of representation, one must pause
and ask some difficult questions.
Whatever the answers, if available,
one can no longer be satisfied
with what to record,
where, how, and when.
As humanity is thinking and
rethinking its conception
of purposefully created collections,
what we traditionally call archives,
we have started thinking
about archives in nuanced
and increasingly sophisticated,
dare I say even sensitive, ways.
There are studies about personal
archives, such as Derrida's,
creations of archives
as works of art.
Recent scholarship talks
about archiving the body,
or the body as archive, about power
relations and the dynamic nature
of archives, the materiality
of archives,
even the silenced archives.
Perhaps then the question I want
to ask today is how do we account
for pain, even if only in the
sense of historical circumstance,
when we attempt to
capture what we conceive --
perceive as an endangered
musical tradition?
Wouldn't we risk sentencing those
few left to doom by deciding
to devitalize, to dehumanize
their spiritual song,
the tradition they carried
through over two millennia
of human presence,
historicity, and faith,
in being primarily preoccupied
with how -- thank you --
with how to convey it
to recorded objects?
To be sure, necessitating its
death in the process of deciding
to mummify a tradition is
neither the aim nor the purpose.
But perhaps by thinking more
dynamically about traditions
which live through pain
then, rather than trying
to capture their last throes,
we might promote their life
and the continuation of
their dynamic existence.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Marius Deeb: We have
15 minutes for questions,
and please address the panelists.
Of course, address what --
the contents of the
papers, but please go ahead.
Who's the first to ask?
Yes?
>> Female Speaker: Thank you.
As someone who's a total
novice about the Syriac chants,
could you very briefly
describe their origin?
>> Mrs. Tala Jarjour: Their origin?
>> Female Speaker: Yes.
>> Mrs. Tala Jarjour: You
couldn't possibly have asked a more
difficult question.
[ Laughter ]
Help me out, please, historians.
In musical terms, this is an
-- in the Western tradition,
again there are more people in
this room who know far a lot more
about Eastern traditions that I do.
But in the Western tradition, there
has never been -- a used at least --
an employed form of
notation or transcription.
So the music has always
been an oral tradition,
which means that it has always been
kept as closely and as faithfully
as the people who have kept
it have made sure it was kept.
So this leads to people saying it
sounded exactly the way it did 2,000
years ago, even more for
people who connect the --
who relate the tradition
to older times.
And it also says that the music
itself has been much subject
to memory and what memory does.
This is a huge discussion.
There are many factors that
played in its development
and in its changing over time.
There were many cultures
that were mixing,
as we heard, only on this panel.
So musical influences
went in and out
in various sorts of
ways and directions.
So this is a very,
very complex question.
What is certain is that people have
put their sacred texts to music,
to musical sounds that they are --
to ways of chanting that
they considered very valuable
and very important.
And that is the reason
why it survives today.
And if one observes living tradition
as I do, as an ethnomusicologist,
I am continuously struck by how
strongly and importantly people feel
about keeping their music alive.
Where it came from, how it changes,
you know, those are questions
that can be addressed in
various forms and ways.
So I'm sorry to have not
answered your question
by trying to answer it.
But this the best that we could do.
>> Prof. Jonathna Loopstra: Can I --
Can I answer from the East
Syrian perspective a little bit?
>> Mrs. Tala Jarjour: Yeah, please.
>> Prof. Jonathna Loopstra:
In addition,
I agree wholeheartedly
with what you say.
In the East Syrian
perspective, it's interesting.
We do have early histories,
accounts that there was some --
something akin to a
musical tradition.
We have, for example, West Syrians
who go into an East Syrian village
and accuse them of corrupting the
minds of the youth by getting them
to chant certain melodies, you
know, and these types of things,
which we don't know
how true that it.
But one interesting thing is,
again, those dots I pointed out.
We see those in the Syriac
Bibles, East Syrian specifically,
all the way from the time of
Joseph Hosea [assumed spelling]
in the sixth century
all the way forward.
So something happened there,
and these are retained
until the printing press.
And some scholars have argued those
dots signified ancient Aramaic hand
motions from music.
They call it kuranami
[assumed spelling].
Again, we don't know
how true that is.
It's a debated point.
Others argue it comes
from the Greek,
like Olibach Mertz
[assumed spelling].
And I think the answer
is somewhere in between.
But what's interesting there is
eventually these are modified,
as I mentioned, and they are
continued in Syriac scriptures
over time to the point where even
some early Byzantinists have argued
these in Syriac represent
phonetic numes [assumed spelling],
may have even influenced
Byzantine numes,
meaning then you would
have some type
of chanted scripture here
retained for over a millennium,
or the indications that it occurred.
So if that's true then, the East
Syrian scriptures might have
been chanted.
If these are numes, they
might have been chanted
from this period onwards, although
they later forgot what they
actually meant.
But --
>> Marius Deeb: Other questions?
>> Dr. Dr. Mark Dickens: Oh, could
I just add to that just to mention
that we have those
musical recitation marks
in bilingual Syriac Sogdian
lectionaries from Turfan
where they have the -- so obviously
they were following the chanting
marks all the way over there
in Western China as well.
>> Prof. Jonathan Loopstra:
For example, along those lines,
you can look at the Sogdian Romans,
and you can actually see the
[foreign language spoken],
the three marks of possibly
exclamation or raised into a nation
on the exact same scriptural
passages in Sogdian that you have
in the East Syrian Bible.
So something's happening there.
Yeah.
>> Marius Deeb: Please, go ahead.
>> Female Speaker: Yes, I wanted to
ask Dr. Mark Dickens in particular
about the excavations in Central
Asia that are turning up Christian,
specifically Syriac, material
or Christian in general,
and I wanted to know that given
that ISIS is blowing up anything
that is either Christian
or even Assyrian today,
how do the Central
Asian governments,
which are basically Muslim,
deal with these excavations
that unearthed a Christian past?
>> Dr. Dr. Mark Dickens:
Well, the thing about most
of the Central Asian
governments is that they're --
they are more post-Soviet
than they are Muslim.
And so, they are -- their main
concern actually are anything
like Daesh or ISIS that -- Muslim
terrorism, that that's their --
actually their biggest concern.
So they tend to clamp
down on those people.
More troubling is the fact that, for
example, that church I showed you
that was excavated in Urgut.
My friend who did the excavation,
once they had taken
all the pictures,
they then had to cover it back up.
And so, there's bricks lying around.
It's like -- it's next
to a rural farm.
There's a sign saying that it's
a protected archaeological site.
There's nobody guarding it.
So anybody could walk in
there and do anything,
not that I think anybody
would because it's --
most people probably
living in the area just --
it just doesn't mean
anything to them.
Now this is one of the
problems, of course,
when you have a cultural
heritage which -- where you --
where you don't have people still
living there that have any sense
of ownership of it, that it then
becomes kind of meaningless.
In China, same thing, you --
places like Turfan, the --
if you can get the Chinese
government involved in them thinking
that it would be good for them
to have this place excavated,
then they might do
some more excavations.
But they would probably be more
interested in looking for evidence
of Chinese, you know, cultural
heritage rather than Syriac.
>> Marius Deeb: Go
ahead, ma'am, please.
>> Female Speaker: I was
curious about the fact
that Christianity seems to have
been taken directly a descendent
of the earlier God worship of
whatever the earlier gods were.
I don't know anything about
this history, and I'm accustomed
to thinking of the
Christian tradition as coming
out of the Jewish tradition,
and I think you firstly --
finally mentioned the
Jewish tradition somewhere
that they were Jewish communities
around where this was happening.
And since the Messianic tradition
is so central to Christianity,
I'm wondering where that
originated since it seems --
did the previous non-Jewish
ancestors of the --
of the Christian tradition
in the Syriac areas --
where did they get the
Messianic ideas from?
I hope this is relevant.
>> Marius Deeb: Who's
going to answer?
>> Prof. Prof. Jonathan
Loopstra: So you're asking when --
how did the Christians
get the Messianic?
>> Female Speaker: Yeah, yeah, how
did [inaudible] because I'm used
to thinking of it coming
from the Jewish tradition,
which seems to have been
eclipsed or kind of vaulted
over in this business from the
earlier gods right to Christianity.
>> Prof. Jonathan Loopstra: One of
the interesting things in the study
of early Syriac Christianity
is that there was -- there's --
we really don't have the evidence
for what was actually happening
on the ground, say in
places like Edessa.
There must have been a Jewish
community alongside a growing
Christian community.
And -- but the question is did the
-- was the Christian community maybe
in your words like
Messianic in some regard?
Were they -- did they cut off
from Jews, or were they separate?
This is a big issue that's
being discussed and debated.
Think, for example, what I mentioned
with the Syriac Bible,
right, the Peshitta.
The question is what -- it was
translated from the Hebrew, we know,
in the first or second centuries.
Did non-Jewish Christians
know Hebrew well enough
to be able to translate that?
Probably not.
Was it Jews who translated
the Hebrew for the Christians?
Well -- or was it the Jews who
weren't quite defined, you know,
or were this middle ground
between Judaism and Christianity
that translated --
knew enough Hebrew
to translate for the Christians?
And so, there's a debate on that.
The questions of what was
happening on the ground in the first
and second century
are hotly debated.
But the point is that
it's very interesting.
Look at Aphrahat [assumed spelling]
and Ephram [assumed spelling].
They're familiar with
Jewish traditions.
Sebastian Brock has
written a lot, for example,
on the use Talmudic
literature interpretations
in early Christianity
and early Syriac.
So they're definitely living
side-by-side in some ways.
This is a continuum of thought.
But at the same time, if you
look at say Aphrahat's writings,
while he uses the types of
interpretation you'll find
in Jewish literature at the --
at the time, he also will use
it against the Jews, right?
So you have him using the
very tools against his --
those that are competing for the
faithful in this period of time.
And you can go on with
Ephram and some
of his other memra
[assumed spelling]
on [inaudible] what's
happening in Edessa as well.
So this is -- this is in
between area, what was happening
in the first and second centuries.
But there is evidence that
there was conversation going on.
>> Male Speaker: I've got
a question for [inaudible].
I'm very interested in scripts
and how the writing system
has -- and for both of you.
Obviously, the script of
Syriac was very influential
in various Iranian languages
and also some Turkic.
So I'm curious to see both in
Pahlavi and then Sogdian, Hotanese,
and other languages the
role of the Syriac script
in preserving actually a lot of
Iranic or Persian related heritage
and also the role that
the Persian Empire --
Empires or dynasties may have
had, both in the pre-Christian era
and the propagating of Aramaic as
well as also after Christianity
and the use of the church
of the East or the church
of Persia essentially, its role
as it went through the empire.
So I'm just curious to hear
your thoughts looking at it,
how it impacted the Persian
world or the Persian-speaking
or Iranian-speaking peoples.
Thank you.
>> Marius Deeb: This
is the last question
because everybody's hungry, okay?
[ Laughter ]
Go ahead.
>> Dr. Dr. Mark Dickens: Okay.
So just briefly, the
-- pretty much all
of the Iranian scripts were based
on the Aramaic alphabet
before Syriac had developed
as a separate alphabet.
So Pahlavi, Sogdian,
from Sogdian came Uighur.
From Uigher came Mongolian script.
Hotanese was actually often written
in the Brahmi script from India.
But as far as the Syriac script
that was carried eastward,
the languages that were
used to -- the Christian --
to produce Christian material
in using the Syriac
script were Sogdian.
So Sogdian was -- Sogdian
Christian material is found both
in the Sogdian script, the native
Sogdian script that comes directly
from Aramaic, and in
the Syriac script,
and also Turkic material is
found both in the Uighur script,
which is dependent on the
Sogdian script, which is dependent
on Aramaic, and in
the Syriac script.
And there are a couple of
fragments in New Persian,
which are also written
in the Syriac script.
But the only Middle
Persian material we have is
that Saltar [assumed spelling], and
it's only in the Pahlavi script.
>> Marius Deeb: Let's give them
a -- the speaker [inaudible].
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Female Speaker: This
has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
