Friday, March 10, 2006

THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET had a birthday celebration at the New Library of Alexandria. Al Ahram has the story:
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.

[...]
Including, I dare say, many Old Testament pseudepigrapha manuscripts. Lots of pseudepigrapha were translated into Armenian.

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