The Syriac Galen Palimpsest (SGP) is a remarkable manuscript that poses many challenges to scholars, yet also promises to yield much. Its undertext contains the Syriac translation by Sergius of Rēš 'Aynā of Galen's On Simple Drugs. A team of scholars met at the University of Manchester to exploit the advances in imaging technology to study this palimpsest. Some initial results are presented here. SGP possibly contains the text of the whole second part of On Simple Drugs (i.e., Books VI-XI); to date, only Books VI-VIII had been thought to survive, as they are preserved in another famous manuscript, London, British Library, MS Add. 14661. SGP's importance, however, does not merely lie in the fact that it preserves text not found elsewhere, but also in that it offers many important variant readings; it is therefore crucial for the textual history of Sergius' translation, as well as Galen's On Simple Drugs more generally. Moveover, this Syriac translation also makes it possible to assess the role that Sergius played in the transmission of medical knowledge from Greek into Arabic. For the first time, one can compare the Greek source text of certain passages with the Syriac translations by Sergius and Graphicunayn, as well as the Arabic version by Graphicunayn. This initial comparison suggests that Graphicunayn is far more indebted to Sergius than he lets us believe in his Epistle (Risāla); and that Sergius was a far more competent translator than previously thought.
The Syriac Galen Palimpsest : Progress, Prospects and Problems
Résumé
en
The Syriac Galen Palimpsest (SGP) is a remarkable manuscript that poses many challenges to scholars, yet also promises to yield much. Its undertext contains the Syriac translation by Sergius of Rēš 'Aynā of Galen's On Simple Drugs. A team of scholars met at the University of Manchester to exploit the advances in imaging technology to study this palimpsest. Some initial results are presented here. SGP possibly contains the text of the whole second part of On Simple Drugs (i.e., Books VI-XI); to date, only Books VI-VIII had been thought to survive, as they are preserved in another famous manuscript, London, British Library, MS Add. 14661. SGP's importance, however, does not merely lie in the fact that it preserves text not found elsewhere, but also in that it offers many important variant readings; it is therefore crucial for the textual history of Sergius' translation, as well as Galen's On Simple Drugs more generally. Moveover, this Syriac translation also makes it possible to assess the role that Sergius played in the transmission of medical knowledge from Greek into Arabic. For the first time, one can compare the Greek source text of certain passages with the Syriac translations by Sergius and Graphicunayn, as well as the Arabic version by Graphicunayn. This initial comparison suggests that Graphicunayn is far more indebted to Sergius than he lets us believe in his Epistle (Risāla); and that Sergius was a far more competent translator than previously thought.
Auteur(s)
Robert Hawley1
, Siam Bhayro2
, Grigory Kessel3
, Peter E. Pormann4
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne UMR8167 ( 7550 )
;
École Pratique des Hautes Études ( 110691 )
;
Université Paris Sciences et Lettres ( 564132 )
;
Collège de France ( 300026 )
;
Sorbonne Université ( 413221 )
;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR8167 ( 441569 )
2
University of Exeter
( 169802 )
- Mail Room, The Old Library
Prince of Wales Road
Exeter, Devon UK
EX4 4SB
- Royaume-Uni
3
Philipps Universität Marburg = Philipps University of Marburg
( 303418 )
- Philipps-Universität Marburg, Biegenstraße 10, 35032 Marburg
- Allemagne
4
University of Manchester - School of arts, Languages and Culture
( 215090 )
- Royaume-Uni
University of Manchester [Manchester] ( 121172 )
Comité de lecture
Oui
Vulgarisation
Non
Langue du document
Anglais
Nom de la revue
Journal of Semitic Studies
(ISSN : 0022-4480, ISSN électronique : 1477-8556)
Publié par Oxford University Press (OUP)
Revue non référencée dans Sherpa-Romeo
Date de production/écriture
2013
Audience
Internationale
Date de publication
2013
Volume
58
Page/Identifiant
131-148
Domaine(s)
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Histoire
Projet(s) Européen(s)
FLORIENTAL
- From Babylon to Baghdad: Toward a History of the Herbal in the Near East
Numéro CORDIS :
263783
Mots-clés
en
Sergius of Resh'aina, Ancient medicine, Syriac medicine, Galen, syriac manuscript
fr
Galien, médecine syriaque, pharmacopée, Sergius de Reshaina, manuscrit syriaque
Robert Hawley, Siam Bhayro, Grigory Kessel, Peter E. Pormann. The Syriac Galen Palimpsest : Progress, Prospects and Problems. Journal of Semitic Studies, 2013, 58, pp.131-148. ⟨10.1093/jss/fgs042⟩. ⟨halshs-00845804⟩