Supplement to Aramaic Studies the Syriac Legal Documents of 3rd Century CE

This book provides an edition and annotated translation of the early Syriac legal parchments from Upper Mesopotamia, drawn up under Roman administration. These provide the first extensive evidence of Syriac language and script in everyday use. 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).