Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
March 10-16 2006

By the book

Eva Dadrian found more than words at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s
exhibition marking the 1,600th anniversary of the Armenian alphabet

Commemorating the 1,600th anniversary of the creation of the Armenian
Alphabet the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in cooperation with the Embassy
of the Armenian Republic in Egypt, presented an exhibition of rare
Armenian manuscripts in February. Inaugurated by Ambassador Taher
Khalifa, Head of External Relations at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
and Rouben Karapetian, the Armenian Ambassador to Egypt, the
exhibition was followed by a scientific conference entitled
“Armenian-Egyptian Historical and Cultural Relations.”

The exhibition offered a rare opportunity for visitors to see 19
Armenian manuscripts, eight originals and the rest facsimiles, from
the Institute of Matenadaran, Yerevan. One of the oldest and richest
libraries in the world, the Matenadaran, as the Armenian manuscript
library in Yerevan, capital of Armenia, is known, is one of the
world’s leading repositories of ancient manuscripts. Its history
dates back to the creation of the Armenian alphabet and its
collection of over 18,000 manuscripts covers almost all areas of
ancient and medieval Armenian culture and science, from history,
geography, grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, mathematics,
cosmography, alchemy-chemistry, to literature, chronology, art
history, music and theatre. It houses manuscripts in Arabic, Persian,
Greek, Syriac, Latin, Amharic (Ethiopian) and in some of the ancient
languages of India and Japan.

With 300,000 other documents the Institute of Matenadaran’s
collection is unique, says Sen Arevshadian, its director. Presenting
a paper — “Alexandria and the Formation of Science in Medieval
Armenia” — during last month’s conference, Arevshadian explained
that while a large number of original texts were lost long ago their
Armenian translations remain extant and are jealously preserved in
the vaults of the Matenadaran where scholars, academics and
researchers from all over the world come to consult and study.

The Matenadaran is not just a museum. It is also a centre of Armenian
manuscript research and preservation where experts from many
countries come to study. The Matenadaran’s first catalogue, prepared
by Hovhannes Shahkhutanian and prefaced by French academician
Brosset, was translated into French and Russian and published in St.
Petersburg in 1840 with details of 312 manuscripts. Later, a second
and much larger catalogue was compiled by Daniel Shahnazarian,
including a total of 2,340 manuscripts.

It is at the Matenadaran that one can find the largest book in the
world, weighing 27.5 kilograms and measuring 70.5 cm by 55.3, placed
alongside the smallest book in the world, weighing a mere 19 grammes.
The Matenadaran also houses a large collection of rare illuminated
manuscripts. Historically, illuminated manuscripts were produced by
monks. These hand-produced books include drawn, painted and gilded
decoration on pages made of vellum, an animal skin that was specially
treated for this purpose. Simple manuscripts were adorned with
calligraphic pen work while more lavish ones were embellished with
initials, enlarged and colourful letters that often contained
miniature representations of human figures or biblical scenes. As for
the illuminated ones, they were painted in luminous colours and had
gold highlights or backgrounds.

Some 14th-century Armenian illuminated manuscripts where colours and
text are set against the decorative surroundings of architectural
elements, birds and plants, demonstrate impressive artistry and
craftsmanship. Because dangers of all kinds threaten manuscripts,
most libraries like the Matenadaran have been induced to undertake
the reproduction in facsimile of their most precious manuscripts.
This great undertaking means that the valuable works of the artist,
the scribe and the illuminator will be preserved.

“It’s not every day you are invited to a 1,600th birthday party, let
alone one for an alphabet,” admitted Jeffrey Gettleman, New York
Times columnist attending a similar celebration in New York, last
December. It was an opinion shared by guests attending the ceremonies
at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

A 1,600th anniversary for an alphabet may not be a common event, but
then the Armenian alphabet is hardly commonplace. Linguists who have
studied it think it one of the oldest in the world still in use.
Recently James Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at
Harvard, has said that when Mesrop Mashtots, the 5th-century court
cleric, invented the Armenia alphabet in 405 AD he gave Armenians
much more than an efficient system for rendering their language into
written form. Mashtots gave the Armenian people a cultural and
religious identity. These characteristics became the very instrument
of survival for the Armenians and a shield against all challenges
“despite,” says Russell, “the efforts of larger and more powerful
neighbours to subsume or destroy them.”

While Mashtots created the alphabet in order to translate the Bible,
the original 36 letters were to inaugurate the beginnings of a
written Armenian literary tradition and play a key role in preserving
Armenian cultural identity. The extensive oral culture that existed
before the creation of the alphabet was transcribed by scholars,
mostly from monastic academies, thus marking the beginning of a
written culture in Armenian.

The original alphabet devised by Mashtots had 36 characters and it is
only during the Middle Ages that two more characters — representing
the “O” and the “F” — were added, thus bringing the number of
characters in the present-day alphabet to 38.

An interesting element that has come to the attention of scholars and
makes the Armenian alphabet stand out amongst all other Eastern
alphabets of the time was Mashtots’ deliberate decision to adopt the
vertical form of script rather than the horizontal form used in most
Eastern writing. According to Russell, he “reoriened the Armenian
script and gave it a more western character.”

The success of the Armenian alphabet is reflected in the limited
number of changes, both in the letters and the spelling of words, it
has undergone since its creation in the 5th century. While other
languages have gone through many changes the Armenian alphabet has
remained almost in its original form showing, says Russell, “the
Armenian alphabet was already so perfect there was little reason for
it to change.” In creating the Armenian alphabet, Mashtots created a
culture, a repository for both Eastern and Western traditions, and
made Armenia a culture of the book , a “bibliocracy,” as Russell puts
it. It is this bibliocracy, this culture of the book, that visitors
to the Armenian manuscript exhibition at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
came to see.

It is believed that the ancient Library of Alexandria was among the
many places Mashtots visited while researching the Armenian alphabet.
There he may have met with Hypatia, the learned lady mathematician,
astronomer and philosopher, and he may have exchanged views and ideas
with the philosophers, grammarians, scientists and historians who
taught in Alexandria. Mashtot has now returned for a second visit to
Alexandria, even if he is back only in spirit.

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