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The Zuqnin Chronicle is a medieval chronicle written in Classical Syriac language, encompassing the events from Creation to c. 775 CE. It was most probably produced in the Zuqnin Monastery near Amida (the modern Turkish city of Diyarbakır) on the upper Tigris. The work is preserved in a single handwritten manuscript (Cod. Vat. 162), now in the Vatican (shelf mark Vatican Syriac 162). The fourth part of the chronicle provides a detailed account of life of Christian communities in the Middle East, including regions of Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt, during and after the Muslim conquest.

It consists of four parts. The first part reaches to the epoch of Constantine the Great, and is in the main an epitome of the Eusebian Chronicle. The second part reaches to Theodosius II and follows closely the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates of Constantinople; while the third, extending to Justin II, reproduces the second part of the History of John of Ephesus (of interest because this part is lost elsewhere). The fourth part is not, like the others, a compilation but the original work of the author and reaches to the year 774-775, apparently the date when he was writing.

The scholar Assemani ascribed it to Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, another Syriac chronographer of the late eighth century (hence the proposed name "Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius", used by some scholars). On the publication of the fourth part of the chronicle by Chabot, it was shown by Theodor Nöldeke, and Nau, that Assemani had been mistaken, and that the largest part of the chronicle in question was the work of an earlier writer, most probably Joshua the Stylite, from Zuqnin, whose name is inserted in the 9th century colophon of a preserved manuscript containing the chronicle.

The author was an amateur historian, and his aim was moral instruction, not history "as such". His work most clearly depended on earlier works, and has thus been accused of plagiarism. However, all point to his being honest about what he recounted. Partially because of these intentions, the author frequently described the portents in this chronicle. This chronicle involves a drawing of Halley's Comet in 760 and auroral drawings in 771/772 and 773 June.

Manuscript Cod. Vat. 162 is the autograph, and in fact the first draft of the manuscript. No further recension, or copy, is known.

Chronicle contains various historical data on Christian communities of the Near East, and their relations with local Muslim authorities. It also contains notes on local culture, languages and various peoples. When referring to his people, the author used the term Suryaye (Syriacs), and also Aramaye (Arameans) as a synonym, defining his people as "sons of Aram", or "children of Aram". Commenting on that question, professor Amir Harrak, a prominent Assyrian scholar and supporter of Assyrian continuity, noted as editor of the Chronicle:

"Northern Syria, the Jazīra of the Arab sources, had been the homeland of the Aramaeans since the late second millennium B.C. Syriac-speaking people were the descendants of these Aramaeans, as the expression above indicates."

In this Chronicle, under the influence of Biblical symbolism, term Assyrians was used as a metaphorical designation for Muslim Arabs as conquerors and rulers of the land, who were rhetorically described, as noted by Amir Harrak, by the extensive use of Biblical references to animosity between ancient Hebrews and Assyrians, that was a common motif in various medieval chronicles.

One section of interest is called the Revelation of the Magi, found in pages 17–25. The story, an expansion of the Adoration of the Magi as seen in the Gospel of Matthew, appears to date from some point in the 2nd–5th century, but was preserved nowhere else than the Zuqnin Chronicle.

References

1. ^ Witakowski 1987.
2. Witakowski 1996, p. XV-XXX.
3. Harrak 2011a, p. 98-99.
4. ^ Harrak 2011b, p. 450.
5. Harrak 2017, p. XI-XXVI.
6. edited by Tullberg, Upsala, 1850
7. Harrak 1999, p. 18-19.
8. Witakowski 1996.
9. Vienna Oriental Journal X. 160-170
10. Bulletin critique, xvii. 321-327
11. Harrak 2009, p. 322-326.
12. Watt 2011, p. 438-439.
13. Harrak 1999, p. 23-24.
14. Hayakawa, Mitsuma & Fujiwara 2017, p. 1-15.
15. Harrak 1999, p. 12.
16. Harrak 1999, p. 226.
17. Harrak 1999, p. 148.
18. ^ Harrak 1999, p. 225.
19. Harrak 2005, p. 45-65.
20. Witakowski 2008, pp. 809–844.

Sources

• Bcheiry, Iskandar (2010). "The Arabization Process in Upper Mesopotamia in the Eighth Century A.D.: The Case of the Mosulis in the Chronicle of Zūqnīn". Parole de l'Orient. 35: 455–475.
• Brock, Sebastian P. (1980). "Syriac Historical Writing: A Survey of the Main Sources" (PDF). Journal of the Iraq Academy: Syriac Corporation. 5 (1979-1980): 1–30, (326-297).
• Brock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.
• Burgess, Richard W. (2006). "A Chronological Prolegomenon to Reconstructing Eusebius' Chronici canones: The Evidence of Ps-Dionysius (the Zuqnin Chronicle)". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 6: 29–38. doi:10.31826/9781463216160-004. ISBN 9781463216160.
• Debié, Muriel (2009). "Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1–3): 93–114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.
• Debié, Muriel; Taylor, David G. K. (2012). "Syriac and Syro-Arabic Historical Writing, c. 500-c. 1400". The Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 155–179. ISBN 978-0-19-923642-8.
• Harrak, Amir (1998). "Arabisms in Part IV of the Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin". Symposium Syriacum VII. Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 469–498. ISBN 9788872103197.
• Harrak, Amir, ed. (1999). The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV: A.D. 488-775. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. ISBN 9780888442864.
• Harrak, Amir (2005). "Ah! The Assyrian is the Rod of My Hand!: Syriac View of History after the Advent of Islam". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 45–65. ISBN 9789042914186.
• Harrak, Amir (2009). "Joshua the Stylite of Zuqnīn". Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 1. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 322–326. ISBN 9789004169753.
• Harrak, Amir (2011a). "Zuqnin, Chronicle of". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 450.
• Harrak, Amir (2011b). "Chronicles, Syriac". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 98–99.
• Harrak, Amir, ed. (2017). The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts I and II: From the Creation to the Year 506/7 AD. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. doi:10.31826/9781463237370-002.
• Hayakawa, Hisashi; Mitsuma, Yasuyuki; Fujiwara, Yasunori (2017). "The Earliest Drawings of Datable Auroras and a Two-Tail Comet from the Syriac Chronicle of Zūqnīn" (PDF). Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. 69 (2): 1–15. arXiv:1610.08690. Bibcode:2017PASJ...69...17H. doi:10.1093/pasj/psw128.
• Morony, Michael G. (2005). "History and Identity in the Syrian Churches". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 1–33. ISBN 9789042914186.
• Watt, John W. (2011). "Yeshuʿ the Stylite". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 438–439.
• Witakowski, Witold, ed. (1987). The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahrē: A Study in the History of Historiography. Uppsala-Stockholm: University of Uppsala. ISBN 9789155419677.
• Witakowski, Witold, ed. (1996). Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre: Chronicle (Known also as the Chronicle of Zuqnin), Part III. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9780853237600.
• Witakowski, Witold (2011). "Historiography, Syriac". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 199–203.
• Witakowski, Witold (2008). "The Magi in Syriac tradition". In Kiraz, George (ed.). Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone: Studies in Honor of Sebastian P. Brock. Gorgias Press. pp. 809–844. doi:10.31826/9781463214814-037. ISBN 978-1-59333-706-3.</ref>
• Wood, Philip (2011). "The Chroniclers of Zuqnin and Their Times (c. 720-75)". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 549–568.
• Wright, William (1894). A Short History of Syriac Literature. London: Adam and Charles Black.

External links

• Vat. sir. 162, digitised manuscript

• Texts in Syriac
• Syriac Christianity
• Syriac chronicles
• 8th-century books
• 775
• 8th-century Christian texts
• Historiography of the early Muslim conquests
• Christian texts of the medieval Islamic world