RAMSIN EDWARD
II. FOLK MEDICINE AND INHERITED KNOWELDGE
Works concerning folk medicine in Assyria are perhaps some of the least studied among Syriac literary genres and may shed some further light on the region’s cultural milieu. For instance, the East Syriac Book of Medicines contains anatomical and pathological discussions, as well as astrological forecasts and calendrical knowledge, divination, incantatory prayers, and a wide range of other devices derived from ancient Mesopotamia.[i] Although such works were condemned to destruction by Church authorities due to their connection with magic — these texts were used rather freely by priests and monks alike, where canonical discipline was less strict.
In pre-Christian Assyria, illnesses were considered to be a punishment (i.e., ethical defect or condemnation) inflicted upon the native population by the gods for their sins. It was in this context that demons, evil spirits and ghosts were believed to have possessed the human body, to render the individual not only physically unfit but morally unclean. Today, some native communities continue to view illness, particularly when terminal, as an infliction from God in return for their transgressions. Traditionally, treatment for such illnesses was, in many cases, both magical and religious.
For instance, the ritual prescription for a headache or “pain in the head,” as demonstrated in the East Syriac Book of Protection, consists of an incantatory prayer that reads as follows: “We bind, anathematise, and drive out, and thrust away these evil spirits from the head, and from the eyes, and from the temples, and from the cheeks.”[ii] It should be noted here that such prescriptions share striking parallels with those found in Neo-Assyrian medical handbooks. In comparison, ancient Assyrian medical formulas also attribute such ailments to evil spirits or ghostly afflictions. What, then, does the persistence of such perspectives mean?
The assumption that such works may have been a product of inherited knowledge, transmitted from pre-Christian Assyrian traditions, is plausible. Such manuscripts not only contain medical formula but omen reading, specific rituals as well as instructions for the preparation of ḥirzē (“amulets” or “charms”). These protective devices consisted of various illustrations that share striking parallels with ancient Assyrian artistic motifs such as equestrian figures hunting, as well as the veneration of a tree (cf. Assyrian tree of life). It is also worth noting here that the local āsyē, or “physicians” (Akkadian: āsū), not only prepared prescriptions for the native population, but dealt with all matters relating to astrology, astronomy, and divination.
In many respects, such methods of treatment are identical with those practiced in ancient Assyria. This continuum of inherited knowledge may also be observed in the literary and liturgical tradition of Syriac Christianity, such as in representations of God, Christ, the Apostles, the Eucharist, as well as the Church. For instance, in the writings of St. Ephrem of Nisibis (c. 306–373), Christ is commonly identified as the āsyā rabbā (“Great Physician”) or mʾassyānā (“Healer”), as well as the sam-ḥayyē (“Medicine of Life”).[iii] The use of such epithets, on the other hand, may not have been a product of this fourth-century Church father.
For instance, in his Commentary on Genesis (43:7–8), St. Ephrem writes: “This is the Church, which gives the absolution with the Medicine of Life, not only to kings but also to all the hosts that follow the kings.”[iv] The imagery in this passage shares striking parallels with ancient Assyrian texts, where the god Aššur made the king’s “shepherdship pleasing like a medicine of life to the people of Assyria.”[v] One may argue that St. Ephrem may have been creatively engaging with competing cultural and religious contexts prevalent in his hometown of Nisibis.[vi] It should be further noted here that Nisibis was not only St. Ephrem’s formative environment, but also home to individuals and groups that continued to observe earlier religious traditions.
As one can see, the use of the appellation “Medicine of Life” is attested in pre-Christian Assyria and is documented in texts from the Neo-Assyrian period. Other comparative themes are the juxtaposition of Christ with pastoral as well as celestial symbolism. For example, titles such as shepherd or farmer were common epithets for deities, heroes, and kings.[vii] As far as pastoral symbolism is concerned, one may turn to St. Ephrem Nisibene Hymns (no. 33): “The Farmer came down to earth for the sake of mankind.”[viii]
For the juxtaposition of Christ with celestial symbolism, one may turn to St. Ephrem’s Hymn on the Nativity (no. 19): “The Lord of the luminaries, came down, and, like the sun, He shone on us from the womb.”[ix] Again, the use of such imagery is widely attested in texts from the Neo-Assyrian period: “Come before the king, the lord of kings… the sun of the people.”[x] St. Ephrem not only possessed an eclectic interest in copying, but also editing and composing various writings, embellished as they were with poetic symbolism.
As one may observe, this early Doctor of the Church could have effectively blended motifs associated with earlier, native religious contexts in his works.[xi] With this in mind, one may also raise the argument that the literary and liturgical tradition of Syriac Christianity took place in remarkably Mesopotamian terms. In fact, several learned individuals at Nisibis — independent of St. Ephrem — were also familiar with pre-Christian traditions, such as Assyrian and Babylonian astrology, astronomy, divination, and folk medicine. Among these learned individuals was Mār Severus Sēbokht of Nisibis (c. 575–666/7).
According to this seventh-century Syriac Orthodox bishop, certain writers of his day propagated the view that the Greeks held a monopoly over wisdom and the sciences. These, Severus pointed out, did not realise that it was the Assyrians and Babylonians, the ancestors of his Syriac Christian contemporaries, who invented such sciences.[xii] He also demonstrated his awareness of celestial observances which the ancients practiced. For instance, in his treatise on the causes of solar and lunar eclipses, Severus refers to a certain celestial-dragon known as athlīyā; a word undoubtedly inherited from the ancient Assyrian word in Akkadian with the same meaning — attalū.[xiii]
III. SACRED SPACES AND SITES, MEMORY, LOCAL FOLKTALES, LEGENDS, HISTORY, AND ORAL TRADITIONS
In Late Antique Assyria, sacred sites, many of which were used for pre-Christian worship, may have been repurposed — not only for their spectacular prominence, but additionally for their cultural and religious significance. For instance, at Khinnis (near modern-day Duhok, Iraq), the monumental rock-art reliefs, depicting a series of ancient Assyrian deities, were transformed into sacred Christian spaces and became the setting of monastic activity. The ninth-century abbot and later prelate of the Church of the East, Mār Thomas of Margā, reports of cells that were cut by early pioneering monks into the façade: “When you enter them, you would be amazed to see the crosses cut in rocks that were not subjected to steel, depicted devotionally inside the cave[s].”[xiv] He further leaves room for one to speculate that such structures, which had once sacralised the landscape, were purified and reused by such ascetics.
In Nineveh, several sacred sites experienced a process of adaptive reuse to accommodate the newly founded faith. This is particularly true for the two great mounds — Qoyunjik and Nabī Yūnus —both of which form the old city. Excavations within the temples of Nabū and Ishtār, for instance, may offer some evidence relating to their continued post-empire occupation.[xv] Among this are artefacts rich in Christian symbolism or iconography, such as cruciform plaques, glassware, incense burners, lamps, motifs, and pottery. These suggest that the sacredness of such sites may have been consciously maintained by the native population itself.
The reuse of sacred spaces and sites, as well as the choice of specific architectural models may indeed point to a deliberate adaptation. On the one hand, one may raise the argument that accessibility and centrality were, of course, the primary motivating factors. On the other hand, one is attracted to the assumption that the sacredness of ancient Assyrian sites was acknowledged through transformation and reuse. Nineveh, according to the available evidence, was elevated into an East Syriac bishopric in the mid-sixth century. The earliest documented reference to this diocese makes an appearance in the synodical proceedings of 554, where a certain prelate of the Church of the East was, for the first time, acknowledged as “Metropolitan of Nineveh.”[xvi]
Evidence concerning whether the city of Nineveh was occupied by a sizeable Christian population prior to its elevation as a bishopric is unclear. Apart from the Synod of 554, there appears to be no earlier record — to one’s knowledge — of any bishop having led this city. One might thus be tempted to argue that the district of Nineveh lacked a strong Christian Church organisation to command a strong following. This assumption may be formed on the basis that the date in which Nineveh was transformed into a bishopric falls within the period that Assyria’s temple religion had experienced a decline in popularity.
With this decline, we see a rise in Christian names (whether biblical or those of saints), suggesting the Assyrians’ inclination to endow their children with the blessings of their newly founded faith and its heroes. Be this as it may, one may point to some unusual names for the period, particularly among the clerical elite: Qashīshā Sargon (“The priest Sargon”), a sixth-century cleric; Mār Philoxenos I Nimrod, the thirteenth-century Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as his relative Qashīshā Nebuchadnezzar.[xvii] How can one comprehend the existence of these names? Was this a persistence of tradition derived from an ongoing Assyrian folklore?
One may raise the argument that such names were most probably adopted due to inspiration from the Bible; and, in fact, there may be some evidence in support of this position. For instance, the father of Qashīshā Nebuchadnezzar — a learned physician named Simon — may have been creatively engaging such names due passages drawn from the Bible, for instance, the Book of Daniel. The production and distribution of Syriac Bible manuscripts were labour-intensive, time-consuming and, to put it bluntly, only available to those in aristocratic circles — to which Simon belonged.
One might also be inclined to raise the argument that Simon’s choice of such a specific name may have been a conscious effort to associate his family with the glory of Mesopotamia’s pre-Christian past. What, then, shall we make of the common folk such as laypeople and villagers? For one, the use of pre-Christian names appears to have declined in popularity around the early third or fourth century. This assumption is based on the fact that the last recorded Aramaic inscription in the city of Aššur bearing a pre-Christian name, to anyone’s knowledge, may be dated to 222 CE and commemorates a certain “Āsūr-beddayyan, son of Āzā.”[xviii] Of course, this is not to rule out the possibility of such survivals elsewhere in Assyria — this, however, requires further study and analysis.
Apart from personal names, there certainly exist respectable evidence that may demonstrate the continuation of spaces and sites, not only as functional centres in the landscape, but as actual sacred places. For instance, the primary East Syriac cathedral in the diocese of Nineveh was that of Mār Yāwnān (St. Jonah) situated atop an archaeological mound directly over an ancient Assyrian palace.[xix] Other examples of such transformations may include the Monastery of Mārt Barbārā (St. Barbara) in the Ninevite town of Karamlēs (ancient: Kār-Mūlissū), founded on top of an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Mūlissū, the consort of the god Aššur.[xx] Similarly, in the vicinity of Mardīn in southeast Türkiye, is the Mār Ḥananyā Monastery, founded directly on the site of an ancient Assyrian sun-temple.[xxi]
In Karḵā (modern-day Kirkuk, Iraq), pre-Christian observances may have prevailed, at least until the sixth century. The East Syriac History of Karḵā projects the city’s initial foundations to the old Assyrian Empire, whose monarchs were credited with founding the site as an administrative outpost to ward off foreign incursions. The most enduring legacy, according to this text, was the installation of aristocratic families that hailed from the “kingdom of the Assyrians” and who were resettled in Karḵā.[xxii] According to the anonymous author, pre-Christian spaces, and sites within Karḵā’s landscape, as well as a temple, continued to attract worshippers during the early Christian period.
In addition to ethnic Assyrians, Karḵā was also later populated by individuals of Persian ancestry, particularly those belonging to high nobility and aristocracy. Despite such demographic shifts, the clerical elite in Karḵā authored accounts narrating the history of their city, prior to and following its Christianisation. The embellishment of such hagiographical traditions with classical motifs was most probably intended to project Syriac Christians, in contrast to their Persian counterparts, as the native population group descending from a genealogy that was distinctly Assyrian.[xxiii] Unfortunately, the agricultural exploitation of this region, enhanced by the presence of modern urban developments, makes it difficult for one to form a clear understanding of the ancient site.
Beyond the urban landscape, the process of adaptation and reuse extended to the rural territories, as well as towns and villages, down to the smallest hamlets within the Assyrian heartland and its surrounds. Although churches and monasteries progressively became ubiquitous features of Assyria’s topography, remnants of the region’s pre-Christian past remained part of the visible landscape. For instance, in the vicinity of Ālqōsh (ancient: Īl-Qāštī) — a town north of Nineveh — a sacred site dedicated to the Assyrian moon-deity Sīn appears to have been completely abandoned.[xxiv] This shrine not only remained visible in the landscape but without any traces of modification.
A preliminary assessment has yielded some evidence suggesting that this was the site of a sacrificial altar in antiquity. This site sits in a landslide area in proximity to an ancient Assyrian military outpost, situated on an artificial hill overlooking the town. In the absence of an adequate archaeological survey, it is difficult to conclude whether this sacred site may have experienced instances of religiously motivated vandalism. One prominent case for the demolition of temples, nonetheless, may be demonstrated in the semi-legendary East Syriac History of Mār Awgēn— a fourth–century Egyptian monk who, according to tradition, introduced coenobitic monasticism to northern Mesopotamia.[xxv]
This hagiographical work projects vandalism of sacred sites as an extraordinary expression of Christian devotion. The episode in question reports that Mār Awgēn “began going around in the villages of Qardo, baptising heathens, and demolishing temples.”[xxvi] The passage continues, “He came first to the village which was at the foot of the mountain”called Sargūgā, where the “offspring and descendants” of Sennacherib — a pre-Christian Assyrian monarch — had occupied and founded a temple following their departure from Nineveh. Two diametrically opposite approaches may be taken with regard to this passage.
On the one hand, one may argue that memories of Sennacherib in this episode were most probably developed in a propagandistic effort to depict Christianity’s triumph over the old faith —and that the Bible played an instrumental role in formulating such portrayals. On the other hand, the assumption that such imagery may have been inspired by long-lived traditions among the native populations, as well as their intimate connection with, and knowledge of the land, is otherwise attractive. Bēth-Qardo or Qardo, as attested in this hagiography, is a placename coterminous with modern-day Cudi Dağ — a mountain range in southeast Türkiye’s Şırnak province. What is particularly significant here is that Syriac texts independent of the History of Mār Awgēn continued to recognise the Christian inhabitants of this district as the descendants of Sennacherib up until the thirteenth century.[xxvii]
Evidence surrounding the historicity of the temple at Sargūgā, as cited in this hagiography, is frustratingly obscure. This should not, however, lead one to doubt its existence; this obscurity may simply reflect the dearth of systematic archaeological research at Cudi Dağ. For one, southeast Türkiye is abundant in archaeological evidence that dates to the Neo-Assyrian period.[xxviii] In fact, several rock-art reliefs associated with Sennacherib exist in this region, some of which depict the ancient king paying reverence to a group of divine symbols.[xxix]
The assumption that such spaces and sites may have maintained collective memory and lore among the native populations is plausible. In fact, there is good evidence that may point in this direction. For instance, further references to Sennacherib appear in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, a historical text composed in a monastery in northern Mesopotamia c. 775. The author reports a fortress associated with Sennacherib named Aghīl, in the vicinity of Āmīd (modern-day Diyarbakır, Türkiye).[xxx] The Syriac name Aghīl, in this text, may be associated with the ancient name ēkallu which, according to the conventions of the Akkadian language, was written as É.GAL, meaning “palace” or “temple.”[xxxi]
As we have already observed, Syriac hagiography includes a rich historical tradition. Syriac Christian authors — both Eastern and Western — particularly those who hailed from Assyria and northern Mesopotamia, commonly embedded motifs derived from local folktales, legends, history, and oral traditions. Such compositions or redactions projected Syriac-speaking Christians, as well as their saints, as the inheritors of a rich heritage. Sennacherib, as we have seen, was not only transformed into the embodiment of a glorious past, but of a birthright that could not be repudiated. While the historicity of such literary traditions may be called into question, there can be no doubt that Assyria and the Assyrians, past or contemporary, biblical or secular, real or reimagined, captivated the minds of Syriac Christians, as well as their literati.[xxxii]
Like the East Syriac Vita of Mār Qardāgh, descent from Sennacherib was also extended to the West Syriac tradition, such as the Vita of Mār Bēhnām (also known colloquially as Mār Bēnā).[xxxiii] This hagiographical work is preserved in several pre-modern compositions and, although the earliest witness dates to 1196, the narrative projects events that are supposed to have taken place in the fourth century. The literary framework of the Mār Bēhnām legend mythologises an en masse conversion of the saint’s royal family line to Christianity. One must note, however, that this text suffers from several obvious anachronisms, chronological errors, and contradictions.
Be this as it may, the anonymous author does integrate historical figures and motifs that may have developed among an Assyrian cultural milieu. According to this tradition, Mār Bēhnām, and his sister Mārt Sārā — like Mār Qardāgh — were of royal blood. The two aristocrats were purportedly the children of a local king or governor known as “Sennacherib of Assyria,” who lost their social pre-eminence following their conversion to Christianity by the holy man Mār Mattaï (St. Matthew).[xxxiv] On hearing the news, Sennacherib instructed his children to renounce their newfound faith.
Their refusal angered their father, who subsequently had them martyred along with forty of their companions. Shortly thereafter, the episode climaxes into Sennacherib’s conversion to Christianity. He commissioned the construction of a church complex dedicated to his children, and another faithfully devoted to Mār Mattaï. What is particularly significant here is that there exists a Syriac inscription from the Ninevite town of Bēth-Ḵūdaidā (modern-day Bakhdida, Iraq), identifying the complex that holds the relics of the martyred saints as the “Assyrian Monastery.”[xxxv]
This inscription, dated to 1739, implies that the native population continued to associate the sacred site with the Assyrians. As one can observe, Syriac Christians from Assyria and northern Mesopotamia — both Eastern and Western — conceived themselves not as the offspring of conquered peoples, but those of great victors and empire builders. This connection with the Assyrians may also be inferred from the Chronography of Mār Mīkhāʾēl Rabbā (“the Great,” c. 1126–1199), Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church. According to this twelfth-century chronicler, ancient Assyrian and Babylonian kings — Sennacherib included — were acknowledged as the ancestors of his Syriac Christian contemporaries.[xxxvi]
(Continued in the next issue)
[i] Grigory Kessel, “Syriac Medicine,” in Daniel King (ed.), The Syriac World (London: Routledge, 2019), 438–59. See also Nicholas Al-Jeloo, “Kaldāyūthā: The Spar-Sammāné and Late Antique Syriac Astrology,” ARAM 24:1 (2012), 457–92.
[ii] Hermann Gollancz, The Book of Protection (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912), 33; Ulrike Steinert, “The Assur Medical Catalogue (AMC),” in Ulrike Steinert (ed.), Assyrian and Babylonian Scholarly Text Catalogues: Medicine, Magic and Divination (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 203–91; Amanda Herbert, “How to cure a ‘headache’ in a Mesopotamian way?,” The Recipes Project: Food, Magic, Art, Science, and Medicine, 10 January 2017, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/8805; Jonathan Taylor, “The Nineveh Medical Encyclopaedia,” The Nineveh Medical Project, Department of the Middle East, The British Museum, 2021, http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/NinMed/ninevehmedicalencyclopaedia/; Troels Pank Arbøll, Medicine in Ancient Assur (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 1-13.
[iii] Amar Annus, “The Survivals of the Ancient Syrian and Mesopotamian Intellectual Traditions in the Writings of Ephrem Syrus,” Ugarit-Forschungen 38 (2006), 1-25.
[iv] Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 48.
[v] Albert Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, I (1114–859 BC), The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods, vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 13. See also Albert Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, II (858–745 BC), The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods, vol. 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 212.
[vi] Vince L. Bantu, “The Ministerial Significance of Early Syriac Theology,” Ex Auditu 29 (2013), 147; Kathleen McVey, The Fathers of the Church: St. Ephrem the Syrian (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 45; Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 200.
[vii] Simo Parpola (ed.), The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West, State Archives of Assyria, vol. 1 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1987), 111. See also Alasdair Livingstone (ed.), Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, State Archives of Assyria, vol. 3 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1989), 14.
[viii] Gustavus Bickell, S. Ephraemi Syri: Carmina Nisibena (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1866), 137–39.
[ix] Thomas Josephus Lamy, Sancti Ephraem Syri: Hymni et Sermones, vol. 2 (Mechelen: H. Dessain, 1886), 497–98.
[x] Simo Parpola (ed.), Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, State Archives of Assyria, vol. 10 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993), 137.
[xi] Paul S. Russell, “Nisibis as the background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian,” Hugoye 8:1 (2005 [2011]), 179–236.
[xii] “Collection of various texts mainly by Severus Sebokht, Bar Hebraeus and George bishop of the Arabs,” original manuscript copied at Mār Ḥananyā Monastery near Mardin, 1309, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Ms. Syriaque 346, fol. 169v.
[xiii] Ibid., fol. 60r. Miguel Civil et al. (eds), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1968), vol. 1 (A, part II), 505–08.
[xiv] Mār Tomā d-Margā, “Ktābā d-Rēshānē” [Book of Governors], original manuscript copied at Tell-Ḥish, 1740, Qalb al-Aqdas Chaldean Catholic Church, Tell-Kepe, Syr. Ms. 110, fol. 248v.
[xv] St. John Simpson, “Christians at Nineveh in Late Antiquity,” Iraq 67:1 (2005), 285–94.
[xvi] “Synodicon Orientale,” original manuscript copied at Our Lady Protectress of the Crops Monastery near Alqosh, 1895, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Ms. Syriaque 332, fol. 96v.
[xvii] “Documenta ad origines Monophysitarum illustrandas” [Documents to illustrate the origins of the Monophysites], original manuscript, 6th-7th centuries, British Library, Add. MS. 14,602, fol. 84r; Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, “Maktbānūth Zabnē” [Chronicles], original manuscript, 15th century, St. Mark’s Syriac Orthodox Monastery, Jerusalem, Ms. 211, fol. 333r; also, Vatican Library, Syriac Ms. 65, fol. 24r.
[xviii] Alasdair Livingstone, “Remembrance at Assur: The Case of the dated Aramaic memorials,” Studia Orientalia Electronica 106 (2021), 151–58.
[xix] Julian Reade, “The Assyrian Palace at Nabi Yunus, Nineveh,” in Yağmur Heffron, Adam Stone and Martin Worthington (eds), At the Dawn of History: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J. N. Postgate (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2021), 431–58.
[xx] Amir Harrak, “The Christian-Muslim Symbiosis of Mosul and its End,” OASIS 10:20 (December 2014), 120.
[xxi] The Monastery of Mār Ḥananyā was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchs of Antioch from 1160 until 1933. See also Diana Darke, Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe (London: Hurst & Co., 2020), 69.
[xxii] [NA], “Tashīyātā d-Sāhdē” [Saints’ Lives], original manuscript copied at Alqosh, 1881, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 75, Sachau 222, fol. 191v. The Syriac text reads: ܕܐܬܼܘܖ̈ܝܐ ܡܠܟܘܬܼܐ.
[xxiii] Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Waḥshiyya and his Nabatean Agriculture (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 34.
[xxiv] Varoujan K. Sissakian et al., “Age Estimation of Alqosh Main Landslide, North Iraq Using Exposure Dating Method,” Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering 6:3 (2016), 163–176.
[xxv] [NA], “Saints’ Lives,” original manuscript, fol. 329r.
[xxvi] The Syriac placename Bēth-Qardo consists of the Syriac name Bēth (“land” or “home”) and the Akkadian word Qardū (“heroic” or “valiant”). See also Cf. Simo Parpola, “Mount Niṣir and the Foundations of the Assyrian Church,” in Salvatore Gaspa et al. (eds), From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, vol. 412 (Münster: Ugarit, 2014), 358, 469–84.
[xxvii] Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, “Maktbānūth Zabnē” [Chronicles], original manuscript, 1288, Vatican Library, Syriac Ms. 383, fol. 243v–243r.
[xxviii] Orhan Aytuǧ Taşyürek, “Some New Assyrian Rock-Reliefs in Türkiye,” Anatolian Studies 25 (1975), 169–80.
[xxix] Ernst Weidner et al., Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 2020), 259.
[xxx] “Chronicle of Zuqnīn,” original manuscript, c. 900, Vatican Library, Syriac Ms. 162, fol. 52v.
[xxxi] Jeremy Black et al., A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000), 67. See also Parpola, “Mount Niṣir,” 412, 475.
[xxxii] Richard E. Payne, A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015), 148.
[xxxiii] [NA], “Saints’ Lives,” original manuscript, fol. 144r.
[xxxiv] Ibid., fol. 149r (Cf. Jacob of Serugh and Ephrem of Nisibis, “History of Mary and Selected Memre,” original manuscript copied at Bakhdida, 1720, Vatican Library, Borg.Sir.128, fol. 112v).
[xxxv] “I am the sinner Evanius, the most humble among the bishops, Karas of Khudeda who does not deserve this appellation. I am holding the shepherding staff of the village of Khudeda and of the Assyrian monastery of Mar Behnam the most exalted of the elected ones. For he provided the expenses and all these things: Iron, blocs of stones – hewn and polished – burnt bricks, I mean stones, and the wages of workers, masons, and diggers; he (Mar Behnam) has granted (these) from his monastery.” Dedicatory inscription at Mār Gīwārgīs Syriac Orthodox church Bakhdīdā, Iraq, commemorating the digging of a well by Bishop Kāras of Mār Behnām in 1739 (translation by Prof. Amir Harrak).
[xxxvi] Mār Mīkā’ēl Rabbā, “Maktbānūth Zabnē” [Chronicle], original manuscript copied at Urfa, 1598, Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo, Syr. Ms. 250, fol. 379v.