This book provides a re-edition and translation of the Syriac legal parchments of the mid 3rd century CE from Upper Mesopotamia, along with extensive commentary. These documents constitute our earliest significant evidence of the Syriac language and script, since only short epigraphs on stone and in mosaics survive otherwise. The texts are reproduced in Syriac script and in transliteration, while plates of the documents and script charts are also included, along with chapters devoted to script and language (in the context of the development of the later Classical Syriac forms) and to law (in the context of the adaptation of Aramaic law to Romanization).
John F. Healey, Professor Emeritus of the University of Manchester, specialises on Middle Aramaic epigraphy (Nabataean, Palmyrene, Syriac). His publications include, with the late Professor Han Drijvers as co-author,
The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene (Brill, 1999).
Academic libraries, research specialists, postgraduate students in Aramaic Studies, Jewish Studies, Semitic Languages, Oriental Christianity, Ancient History, Eastern Roman Empire, legal history of Mesopotamia, local law under the Roman Empire