British Library add. 14,493 : a very early Garsuni text

Abstract

The production of whole Garšūnī codices, starting from the end of the fourteenth century, was preceded by the insertion of short notes, rubrics in liturgical texts and colophons within Christian Palestinian Aramaic manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. However, the roots of Garšūnī may be traced back to the tenth century, if not even before that. It is often believed that early Garšūnī evidence falls short of literary levels. The very early Garšūnī text presented here, which most probably is being published for the first time, constitutes, in the author’s opinion, an exception to this generalized assumption. The text includes some ninety brief invocations to God with which the anonymous scribe addressed an unknown, if not hypothetical, emir. Apart from presenting the Garšūnī text, its translation and some philological considerations, this article also discusses the text’s khuṭba genre, ‘addressing emirs’ as subject matter and the question concerning dating.