The Syriac Reference Portal: New Access to Sources for the History of the Middle East

FAIN: PW-51161-12

Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN 37203-2416)
David Allen Michelson (Project Director: July 2011 to September 2016)

Development of an online portal to reference resources on Syriac studies, including an encyclopedia, a prosopography tool for information related to Syriac sources, a classified bibliography, and other research tools. The portal would integrate and link information about the ancient sources and scholarly works.

Syriac is a middle eastern language once spoken by populations stretching across the Middle East and central Asia. For much of the first millennium C.E., Syriac served as a common language bridging the cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East and serving as the cultural meeting point between Christianity and Islam. Today, perhaps more than ten thousand manuscripts written in Syriac survive, with a wide range of origin stretching from Turkey and Egypt to Iraq, Iran, western China and South India. These materials are of interest to scholars in a variety of humanities fields: Middle Eastern studies, classics, medieval history, religious studies, and linguistics. Unfortunately, due to the lack of reference works, Syriac documents are little studied today. The Syriac Reference Portal provides a new path into this area of history for scholars and the interested public through the creation of an online encyclopedia, a manuscript catalogue and other scholarly tools.

Media Coverage

‘Syriac Gazetteer’ preserves endangered Middle East cultures (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Ann Marie Deer Owens
Publication: Research News @ Vanderbilt
Date: 4/23/2014
Abstract: Key moments in the development and interaction of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religions are being preserved through Syriaca.org, an international collaboration edited by scholars at Vanderbilt and Princeton universities. The Syriac Gazetteer, an online geographical dictionary, is the first in a series of reference works launched by Syriaca.org to document and save ancient and medieval Middle Eastern cultural heritage now threatened by civil war and political instability.
URL: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/04/syriac-gazetteer/

Texas A&M, Vanderbilt Faculty Work To Preserve Piece of Middle Eastern Culture (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Bryant Welbourne
Publication: SECU Quarterly
Date: 7/21/2016
Abstract: Faculty from two SEC universities are working to prevent that from happening to one Middle Eastern culture that dates back more than 1,500 years. Dr. David Michelson, Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity at Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Daniel Schwartz, Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, recently participated in the SEC Faculty Travel Program to work on a grant application for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The project, which later received funding from the NEH, called for support of a digital humanities collection of Syriac literature.
URL: http://www.thesecu.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SECU-Quarterly-Summer-2016.pdf

Associated Products

The Syriac Gazetteer (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: The Syriac Gazetteer
Author: David A. Michelson
Author: Thomas A. Carlson
Abstract: The Syriac Gazetteer is a geographical reference work of Syriaca.org for places relevant to Syriac studies. “Places relevant to Syriac Studies” include places named in Syriac texts (such as ?arqel — ????), places interesting to historians who work on Syriac texts (such as Dura-Europos), and places where scholarship on Syriac is being produced (such as Japan). There are no temporal or spatial boundaries for the geographic database, which collects places relevant to any period of history useful for Syriac studies, from places mentioned in the Peshitta version of Genesis to places founded recently, and from ancient Edessa to Mongol-era outposts in China and diaspora communities in the United States of America. At least in theory, any type or size of place could be represented in the geographic database, from large empires to single churches or a particular named city gate. Maps are provided for places whose location is known, but the database includes places which are not located or even locatable: each place is a conceptual thing with a mental existence related to, but not reducible to, its physical manifestation. Mythological and other ahistorical places are also included in the database.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://syriaca.org/geo
Primary URL Description: This is the permanent URI for The Syriac Gazetteer.
Secondary URL: https://github.com/srophe/srophe-eXist-app/
Secondary URL Description: Source code for the project is available here.
Access Model: Open access data and software.

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica (New Handbook of Syriac Literature, Volume I) (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica (New Handbook of Syriac Literature, Volume I)
Author: Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent
Author: David. A. Michelson
Author: Ugo Zanetti
Author: Claude Detienne
Abstract: Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica (BHSE) is a guide to 1,837 Syriac stories, hymns, and homilies on Christian saints. These texts blossomed alongside the cult of the saints in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. While traditions in Greek and Latin are well known to scholars, the stories of the saints of the Middle East are only just being discovered. The BHSE makes Syriac hagiography available to scholars and the wider public, with information about these texts including: authors, opening and closing lines, manuscripts, translations, and bibliography. The BHSE is the result of a partnership between Syriaca.org and the Jesuit scholarly society, La société des Bollandistes. The BHSE combines digital scholarship with the methods for the study of hagiography developed by the Bollandists since 1643.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://syriaca.org/bhse
Primary URL Description: This is the permanent URL for Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica
Secondary URL: https://github.com/srophe
Secondary URL Description: Source code for the project can be found at github.com
Access Model: Open Access, Creative Commons CC-BY

Qadishe: A Guide to the Syriac Saints (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume I) (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Qadishe: A Guide to the Syriac Saints (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume I)
Author: Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent
Author: David. A. Michelson
Abstract: Qadishe (from the Syriac word meaning “saints”) is a scholarly catalogue of 1,094 persons venerated in the Syriac Christian traditions. Qadishe includes entries for saints native to the Syriac-speaking milieu as well as for biblical figures and saints from other linguistic or cultural traditions who were appropriated into Syriac religious memory. Individual descriptions of each saint include name variants (in Syriac as well as translation), biographical information such as death dates and related persons, and bibliographies of primary and secondary literature including accounts of the saint’s life. For places and texts associated with a saint, Qadishe provides references to related information in The Syriac Gazetteer and the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica. Qadishe is freely available online as the first volume of The Syriac Biographical Dicationary. Readers can browse entries online, download the entire publication in TEI XML, create permanent links to other digital publications, and offer editorial revisions through Gateway to the Syriac Saints: http://syriaca.org/saints
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://syriaca.org/q
Primary URL Description: Permanent URL for Qadishe: A Guide to the Syriac Saints (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume I)
Secondary URL: https://github.com/srophe
Secondary URL Description: Source code for the project is available on github.com.
Access Model: Open Access, Creative Commons CC-BY

A Guide to Syriac Authors (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume II) (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: A Guide to Syriac Authors (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume II)
Author: David. A. Michelson
Author: Nathan P. Gibson
Abstract: A Guide to Syriac Authors is a scholarly manual with entries on nearly 1,000 authors who wrote in Syriac or otherwise had an influence on Syriac literature. A dialect of Aramaic, Syriac flourished as a lingua franca of the Middle East in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Today more than 20,000 manuscripts preserve texts in Syriac pertaining to theology, philosophy, commerce, science, and medicine. As a digital reference work, A Guide to Syriac Authors employs linked data technology to meet the needs of manuscript cataloguers and historical researchers interested in Syriac authors. Relationships between authors and texts, places, or other persons are documented through links to related information in The Syriac Gazetteer and The New Handbook of Syriac Literature. A Guide to Syriac Authors is freely available online as the second volume of The Syriac Biographical Dictionary. Readers can browse entries online, download the entire publication in TEI XML, create permanent links to other digital publications, and offer editorial revisions at http://syriaca.org/authors “This is the first Who’s Who in Syriac Studies, a pioneering tool in a whole range of ancient and modern languages providing information about the individuals through time who created and were part of Syriac culture and still keep it alive today.” —Muriel Debié, Directeur d’études (Sciences Religieuses), École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://syriaca.org/authors
Primary URL Description: Permanent URL for A Guide to Syriac Authors (Syriac Biographical Dictionary, Volume II)
Secondary URL: https://github.com/srophe
Secondary URL Description: Source code for the project is available on github.com.
Access Model: Open Access, Creative Commons CC-BY

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