227 Manuscripts From Qalb Al Aqdas Chaldean Church Have Been Added To Reading Room

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The ascension of Christ in QACCT 00017

227 manuscripts from Qalb al-Aqdas Chaldean Church have been added to Reading Room

Posted: 2021-09-10

The collection of manuscripts from Qalb al-Aqdas Chaldean Church in Tel Kepe (QACCT), Iraq, has now been fully cataloged and is active in Reading Room. The village of Tel Kepe, located between Mosul and Alqosh, has historically been home to a large community of Syriac heritage Christians, particularly associated with the Chaldean Catholic Church. The manuscripts were digitized in 2010, just a few years before the village was captured by the Islamic State (ISIL) in 2014, forcing the Christian families to flee.

The collection consists of 227 manuscripts, primarily containing texts written in the Syriac language, but there are also texts in Arabic, Arabic Garshuni, and Neo-Aramaic (Sureth). Most of the manuscripts are dated to the 18th through 19th centuries, though there are several important earlier manuscripts among the collection, such as QACCT 00008, an Evangelion that, while undated, was likely copied sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries. While many of the manuscripts were copied in Tel Kepe, others were copied in nearby villages like Gazarta, Alqūsh, and Mosul. Several of these manuscripts were copied by well-known scribal families in Alqūsh and Tel Kepe, and their colophons provide important information for studying scribal culture and the transmission of texts in the early period of the Chaldean Catholic tradition. The collection is primarily composed of manuscripts for liturgical use, though it also contains copies of works by patristic authors and other theological texts, both ancient and modern. View now

Image caption: The ascension of Christ in QACCT 00017

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