Tehran Times
April 12 2009
Persian manuscripts to go on display in Armenia
Tehran Times Culture Desk
TEHRAN — An exhibition of Persian manuscripts will be opened at the
Scientific Research Institute of Old Manuscripts of Matenadaran in
Yerevan from April 14 to 20.
A total of 500 Persian manuscripts preserved in the Matenadaran Museum
will go on display during the exhibition.
On April 7, the fourth volume of `The Persian Decrees of Matenedaran’
series by Kristine Kostikyan was also unveiled at the museum during a
ceremony that was attended by several Iranian and Armenian officials.
Holding manuscript exhibit shows that Iranians and Armenians care
about the preservation of their scientific achievements since ancient
times and also for the reading of books, mentioned Armenian Minister
of Education and Science Spartak Seyranyan during the event.
Persian manuscripts are carefully preserved at the museum as are
Armenian documents kept by Iranians at the Vank church in Isfahan,
Madenataran director Hrachya Tamrazian told at the ceremony.
Iran’s cultural attaché in Yerevan Mohammadreza Shakiba said
during the ceremony that interchanges between civilizations are
possible through books and such an exhibition is an epitome of
friendship between the two countries.
In 1950, the first volume of a series entitled `The Persian Documents
of Matenadaran’ was published, which contained the Persian-language
decrees of the 15th-16th centuries. They were deciphered, studied,
translated into Armenian and annotated by Hakob Papazyan.
In 1968, in the same three-language version (Persian, Armenian and
Russian), H. Papazyan published a second series of the documents,
which included the estate certificates of the 14th-16th centuries. The
following volume was again devoted to decrees and included 43
documents issued in 1601-1650.
It is planned to prepare and publish also all decrees from the second
half of the 17th to the 18th and 19th centuries as well as the estate
certificates of the 14th-16th centuries.
Photo: A page from a historical manuscript version of Ferdowsi’s
Shahnameh
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