Identifying Scattered Puzzles of Syriac Liturgy Manuscripts

This project aims to build a database that includes all the prayers written in Syriac (originally a dialect of the ancient language of Aramaic) that may be found in manuscripts and fragments (fallen pieces from written manuscripts, which may be found as full pages or little pieces of a page). As is the case while playing a jigsaw puzzle, the project intends to find possible connections to link these written pieces of Syriac prayers, so that scholars and students may have a better look at the full image of the liturgical texts. The project research questions presume that these liturgical Manuscripts served as the primary books for Christian worship. While being prayed in the Christian meetings, they were later written down as texts. Later on, these texts of prayers crossed cultures and somehow migrated to several geographical locations (even crossing continents). There are still many problems to be resolved in order to identify the exact relationship among these Syriac texts of prayer, such as to what extent they borrowed from each other? This is the endeavour to describe and study the liturgical manuscripts comprehensively, and to build a digital database. This will enable the project to achieve its objectives by providing for the first time an open access database to all the Syriac liturgical texts. The database will then contribute in detecting, understanding, and relocating the content of many Syriac fragments.