Rescuing Antiquity
Using tools of digital humanities to save an imperial ancient language’s cultural heritage.
As a dialect of Aramaic, Syriac is a branch of the language believed to have been spoken by Jesus Christ. And based on its rising influence during the centuries when the Gospels first spread, Syriac is also considered the third great language of ancient literature and Christianity, after Latin and Greek. Still, those distinctions haven’t spared it from fading into near obscurity.
Dr. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, assistant professor of theology, is helping to shepherd a project to digitally rescue and preserve the Syriac cultural heritage that has faded as well.
Syriac flourished in the fourth through seventh centuries, although a modern variant is still spoken in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The deadly wars in Syria and Iraq, however, have threatened remaining Syriac communities, along with their cultural heritage. Some experts have feared the culture and language could be lost forever.
Before that happens, Saint-Laurent and colleagues are using “the tools of digital humanities” to build Syriaca.org — a portal where databases on subjects such as Syriac geography, saints, authors and other notable persons are freely accessible to historians, theologians, archeologists, students and others.
The contents are gathered from books, manuscripts, museums, monasteries, obscure collections and the internet. Saint-Laurent and colleagues edit, vet, footnote and proof the information to ensure accuracy, relying on an intimate knowledge of ancient Syriac vocabulary and grammar to extract meaning from these sources.
Saint-Laurent’s specialty is hagiography, or narratives of the lives of the saints venerated in the Syriac tradition. The information on the website, however, is not meant to be exhaustive or as incisive as traditional scholarship; instead, it’s a starting point for further research, she says.
Based on its rising influence when the Gospels first spread, Syriac is considered the third great language of ancient literature and Christianity, after Latin and Greek.
Saint-Laurent and project founder Dr. David Michelson, an assistant professor of early Christianity at Vanderbilt University, fostered their shared interest in all things Syriac while studying together as graduate students. Now numbering six core members, the project team has seen its funding exceed $1 million. Renowned Princeton University professor emeritus Peter Brown donated to the project half of the $950,000 prize money he received in winning the 2011 Balzan Prize for Ancient History. Citing Syriac’s “huge legacy,” Brown has called it “an entire third voice of the ancient Christian church.”
Once obscure, Syriac continues to generate growing interest, says Saint-Laurent. “Syriac study opens people’s eyes to the larger history of Christianity. It also illustrates the complicated history of the Middle East.”
Global Gathering
Preserving the Syriac language is no solo task. Last May, Dr. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent co-hosted a conference at Marquette that drew about 30 collaborators — students, faculty members and librarians. Scholars came from as far away as Germany and France, bringing with them a variety of religious perspectives and academic backgrounds.
The Syriaca.org online database project connects these people, making the preservation effort a collaborative one. “You have everything from the history of science, to the history of philosophy, to theology and poetry, so people find different angles from which they find this interesting,” says Dr. Dan Schwartz, co-host of the conference and history professor at Texas A&M University.
— By Georgia Pabst
