MATENADARAN’S RICH MANUSCRIPTS FUND BEING REPLENISHED

Noyan Tapan
Dec 19 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The rich manuscripts fund of
Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran-Institute of Old Manuscripts continues
to be replenished with medieval Armenian manuscripts. As Noyan Tapan
correspondent was informed by Hrachya Tamrazian, Matenadaran Director,
one of the manuscripts is a lost manuscript of the 17th century and
the other a masterpiece of miniature painting and manuscript art,
14th century’s ancestral Gospel of the Proshians, which was donated
to the St. Paul-Peter Church in 1922.

However, when the church was destroyed in 1937, only some parts of the
Gospel remained. In the future their traces were also lost. However,
the parts of the lost Gospel have been found in Moscow lately. Thanks
to Moscow-based Hrant Poghosian and his friends it became possible
to purchase the old manuscript and to return it to Armenia.

According to H. Tamrazian, noticeable activity is observed lately in
the respect of discovery and donation of manuscripts.

At present more than 17 thousand manuscripts in Armenian and Arab
languages are kept in Matenadaran depositories.