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## The Syriac tradition{.text-h2 .mt-4 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
### I. Neo-aramaic text witnesses{.text-h3 .mt-4 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
#### A. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sachau 339 (listed in Sachau's catalogue as limit identifier 290){.text-h4 .mt-4 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Link to the digitized original: [https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN862951585&PHYSID=PHYS_0005](https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN862951585&PHYSID=PHYS_0005) {.body-2}
#### B. British Library (London), Brit. Libr. Add. 9321 (also known as "MS London-Sachau 9321"){.text-h4 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Pages: fol. 536b-620b{.body-2}
Date of creation: ca. 1897{.body-2}
Copyist: Ǧibra'īl Qūryaqūzā{.body-2}
Provenance: East Syriac (dialect of 'Alqōš (Iraq)){.body-2}
catalogue entry: not available{.body-2}
Link to the digitized original: not available{.body-2}
Transcription & translation: Braida 2014{.body-2}
#### C. Tellkepe (Iraq), QACCT 135{.text-h4 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Pages: fol. 230a-246a{.body-2}
Date of creation: 1937{.body-2}
Copyist: Diakon Matīkā bar Yawsep mār Mīkā bar Qūryaqūs bar Ǧerǧīs Ḥadādē beth Ḥaǧī{.body-2}
link to the digitized original: [https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/136599](https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/136599) {.body-2}
Transcription & translation: not available{.body-2}
### II. Text witnesses in Classical Syriac{.text-h3 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
For the text witnesses in Classical Syriac, the situation is quite different: All in all, we have identified 21 manuscripts that can be divided into an East and West Syriac branch. Four of those manuscripts are lost and could not to be found. In one case, there are available readings of a lost manuscripts as marginal notes of Harvard syr. 80 (= Ms. Urmia 270). Moreover, another lost manuscript (= Ms. Graffin) has been transcribed prior to its lost by Nau.{.body-2}
Among those manuscripts form Tur Abdin, there is a copy of one of the published version. Therefore, this manuscript will be neglected for this project.{.body-2}
#### II.I Lost text witnesses{.text-h4 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
##### A. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 115{.text-h5 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Pages: unknown{.body-2}
Date of creation: 1868/9{.body-2}
Copyist: Anonymous{.body-2}
Provenance: East Syriac{.body-2}
catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 21{.body-2}
Link to the digitized copy: not available{.body-2}
Transcription & translation: not available{.body-2}
##### B. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 117{.text-h5 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Pages: unknown{.body-2}
Date of creation: 1887{.body-2}
Copyist: Šmū'īl Tḥūmānāyā d-Mazrʻā{.body-2}
Provenance: ostsyrisch{.body-2}
catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 21{.body-2}
Link to the digitized copy: not not available{.body-2}
Transcription & translation: Readings are available in Harvard syr. 80; {.body-2}
Further remarks: it is an uncompleted copy of a nearly 800 years old lost vorlage{.body-2}
##### C. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 230{.text-h5 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Pages: unknown{.body-2}
Date of creation: 1894{.body-2}
Copyist: Yōḥanān bar Ṭalyā da-Tḥūmā{.body-2}
Provenance: ostsyrisch{.body-2}
Catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 37{.body-2}
Link to the digitized copy: not not available {.body-2}
Transcription & translation: not not available{.body-2}
##### D. Ms. Graffin{.text-h5 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Page: 1-56{.body-2}
Date of creation: 1908{.body-2}
Copyist: Priest Elias (abbot of the monastery Rabban Hormizd and nephew of Bishop Addai Scher){.body-2}
Provenance: East Syriac ('Alqōš (Iraq)){.body-2}
Catalogue entry: not not available (cf. transcription & translation){.body-2}
Link to the digitized copy: not not available{.body-2}
Transcription & translation: Nau 1918-1919, 274-307 and 356-380{.body-2}
Further remarks: Commissioned work for Bishop Addai Scher{.body-2}
#### II.II Further text witnesses{.text-h4 .mt-6 .mb-6 .font-weight-light .primary--text}
Link to the digitized copy: [https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/123101](https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/123101) {.body-2}
Transcription & translation: Copy of the edition of Dolabanis (i. e. copy of the first edition of Conybeare et al. 1898 with additional corrections) {.body-2}
The remaining 16 text witnesses (together with the copy of Ms. Graffin) can be displaed in this way: In the left, the West Syriac branch can be seen. Its oldest text witnesses dates from 15th century. This manuscript is heavily damaged and has been torn within the sayings. The other witnesses transmit solely the sayings. However, Aleppo SCAA 7229 contains even the parables. This manageable amount gives a clue why Bishop Dolabani (1885-1969) - one of the best experts of Syriac manuscripts of his time - published and corrected the first edition of Conybeare et al.{.body-2}
The remaining text witnesses bleong to the East Syriac tradition. Apart from the two oldest fragment Brit. Libr. Add. 7200 and Brit. Libr. Or. 2313, the other manuscripts can be located surely: One branch comes from Urmia and there, it was present until the beginning of WWI. Its most important text wittness is Cambridge Add. 2020 and has been used as basis for the editions of Conybeare et al. Though this manuscript was written in Northern Iraq, it is quite different from other manuscripts of this manuscripts (all of them were written in a later time). In the meantime, it has explicit affinities to the later manuscripts from Urmia. These three manuscripts are closely related to each other though there cannot be detected a direct dependence between them. Even the order of the sayings is mostly corresponding.{.body-2}
A second East Syriac branch is rooted in Northern Iraq. This branch has Additions and annotations that were missing in the Urmia tradition. Furthermore, this tradition can be divided into two branches: The red marked branch consists of two manuscripts that have been mostly re-translated from an Arabic Vorlage. The older manuscript Birmingham Mingana syr. 433 is closer to the other manuscripts than Berlin Sachau 336 in regard of wording and word order. Only in Sachau 335, the name of Ahiqar's son is transmitted as „Nadab“ (in accordance with Tobit 14,10) and not as „Nadab". Even in the Arabic tradition, this writing form is not attested and a confusion of letters resp. points can be excluded. The proximity to Berlin Sachau 336 is obvious though Berlin Sachau 336 has several aberrations and additions (among others the highest number of sayings and parables). Thus, Nöldeke (1913, 54) is right by saying: {.body-2}
B (= Sachau 336; Anm. SB) ist also zusammengesetzt aus ziemlich arg entstellten Originalstücken und aus solchen, die aus dem Arabischen nicht sehr geschickt retrovertiert sind. Das wird so zu erklären sein: ein Abschreiber kopierte eine von vorn und gegen das Ende defekte syrische Handschrift und ergänzte sie durch Rückübersetzung aus einer arabischen. Dieser buntscheckige Text mag weiter durch verschiedene Schreiberhände gegangen sein und noch allerlei Ungemach erlitten haben, bis er die Gestalt gewann, in der er uns in der Sachauschen Handschrift vorliegt. Will jemand diese Gestalt ein Monstrum horrendum informe nennen, so kann ich ihm nicht widersprechen. Aber trotzdem kann die Wissenschaft auch aus diesem Achikar-Text Nutzen ziehen.{.blockquote .body-2}
