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).
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 The Debt-Transfer of 240CE (P. Euphr. 18)
2 The Lease of 242CE (P. Euphr. 19)
3 The Slave-Sale of 243CE (P. Dura 28)
3.1Excursus: P. Dura 152
4 Aramaic/Syriac in Greek Documents from the P. Euphr. and P. Dura Archives
4.1P. Euphr. 1
4.2P. Euphr. 3 and 4
4.3P. Euphr. 6 and 7
4.4P. Euphr. 9
4.5P. Euphr. 10
4.6P. Euphr. 12
4.7P. Dura 27
5 The Scripts of the Documents
5.1Excursus: Numerical Signs
6 The Aramaic/Syriac of the Documents
7 The Legal Language of the Documents
Concluding Remarks
The Texts in Syriac Script
Script Charts (Figures 140)
Plates
Bibliography
Index of Words
Index of Personal Names
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).
