Manuscript Hunter Part 2: The Results

I have returned from my trip to the US to photograph a handful of Syriac manuscripts. The work went quite well, with only a few minor problems accessing the material. Here's a brief rundown of the trip.

I arrived in New York City Sunday night. Princeton Theological Society was scheduled for one o'clock the following afternoon. So, after a short stroll through Central Park Monday morning, I headed off to Princeton. When I arrived, a fire alarm was going off in the library (due to construction) and I had to wait a little while for that to be resolved. I speedily photographed the manuscript (Speer Library Cabinet C, Ms. 40). I was under the mistaken belief that this was a copy of a manuscript from Urmia (Urmia 43) that was now lost. In fact, however, it actually is Urmia 43. So, one mystery solved. Documents in the library suggest that the other two Urmia manuscripts (38 and 47) are indeed lost, though the Royal Asiatic Society Ms published by Budge is virtually identical to Urmia 38.

On Tuesday, I made it to Union Theological Seminary to photograph UTS Syr. 32, a fragmentary Life of Mary Ms of only forty or so pages. Upon arrival I was told I needed a temporary library card from Butler library, which was four blocks down the street. Sigh. After a quick run in terrible heat, I was back to complete the job.

And on Friday, I spent a few hours in Harvard's Houghton Library photographing Mss. 168 and 82. Houghton is somewhat more regimented than the other two libraries. Besides the elaborate security one has to get through, I could not use my tripod. I was also slowed down by some hem-ing and haw-ing over the manuscripts. They could not understand why the library itself could not photograph them, despite my insistence that I was told that the library informed me these could not be photographed because they were too delicate. After clearing everything with the curator, I was given the go-ahead. I also got a look at Titterton's very extensive catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts.

And now I am back in Waterloo, cropping and organizing the photographs so that I can print them out in the next few days. I still don't know how valuable the manuscripts will be: Houghton Ms. 168 I have collated already, so it holds no surprises, but the other three may very well be Life of Mary manuscripts that do not contain the Infancy Thomas material, in which case they are not particularly useful to me, but may be for others interested in the text. At the very least they will be incorporated into my description of the Life of Mary manuscripts, which have been terribly confused in previous studies of the material.