|
 |  | | |  | |
|
Description of the Discovery of the Ancient Book of Mortis Manuscript
By Cevat Noyan, curator of the Rahmi M. KOC Museum
When archaeologists discover something they expose it to the light of day, then often reveal it to the world at large by exhibiting it. When we describe ancient and primitive artifacts and manuscripts as discoveries, we should always bear in mind that they were once known to peoples of past ages.
For example, the discoveries of the Qumran Caves (Dead Sea) Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi Codices, the Amarna Tablets, and the Ras Shamrah texts, all shed considerable light on the beliefs and life of people who once existed in the distant past.
But in addition to allowing us to develop a better understanding of antiquity archaeological discoveries can also prove critically important to self-understanding.
This brings us to a 'discovery' of the Book of Mortis in the ancient Castle of Diyarbakir. Diyarbakir has its roots in Mesopotamia, an area in modern southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq/Iran. In this area, the head waters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers send the ancient waters down through Iran and Kuwait to the Persian Gulf. This is the same real estate where the Assyrians displaced the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century B.C.E. It is here that the great Church of the East had its beginnings and a history extending back to the missionary efforts of the Apostles Thomas and Thaddeus.
The first sections of the castle are assumed to have been built by the Hurris. The city is surrounded by a dramatic and fully intact set of black basalt walls, first constructed in 297, extending in a 5.5 km circle around the old city. In 349, during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantinus II, walls were built round the city, and the Fortress was reinforced. During the Artuklu, Akkoyunlu, Selçuk, Ottoman and Republican eras it was restored many times. It consist of two sections, the outer fortress and the inner castle, or citadel. The outer fortress walls contain 82 bastions and have four gates. The inner castle also has four gates and was surrounded by walls during the period of Sultan Süleyman the Great.
The city of Diyarbakir is the unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions of Turkey. Situated in the fertile crescent, it is a city of great antiquity having been inhabited for at least 5,000 years. It was the capital of the ancient Armenian empire, then known as the Armenian name Tigranakert. It was known as Amida in Roman times, and was renamed Diyarbakir (tr. Bakr's Dream) after being captured by the Arabs in 629.
Hamdum, an Arab chief, conquered Altzniq and Amida (Diyarbakir), around 962. In 963 a sister of Hamdun whose name is not quoted in the original sources, governed the region for ten years. Later than 973 there's not more news.
The dramatic warren of alleyways and old-fashioned tenement blocks which makes up the old city contrast dramatically with the sprawling suburbs of modern apartment blocks and gecekondu slums to the west. Diyarbakir boasts numerous medieval mosques and madrassahs, crowned by the 11th Century Ulu Cami (tr. Great Mosque) constructed by alternating bands of black basalt and limestone. The same patterning was used in the 16th Century Deliler Han Madrassah, which is now a hotel, and the 12th Century Castle Mosque (Kale Camii).
The Assyrian Orthodox Church of Our Lady, was first constructed as a pagan temple in the 1st Century B.C.E, and is still in use as a place of worship today.
The Diyarbakir Codex is a manuscript of the 22 books forming the work known as The Book of Mortis in Syriac-Aramaic written on 254 leaves (folios) of vellum. The writing is in black ink, somewhat brownish from fading, and is in one column of 29 lines to a page. Titles and subscriptions of books are in red ink, as well as the places where they were written. The handwriting is uniform and very skillful, possibly supporting the identity of one scribal hand. The binding and cover, though very old, are not coeval with the manuscript. There is an additional leaf at the end on which the scribe has written a resume of the subscriptions and titles.
Because certain hieroglyphs found in The Book of Mortis reflect those found in caves near Cayonu, it has been convincingly argued that these caves were once part of a pseudo-religious complex, or subterranean temple in prehistoric times. Astonishingly, excavations in and around the Hilar Caves have revealed this to be one of the oldest settlements of Anatolia, dating back to the 8th millennium B.C. The artifacts belong to the Early Agricultural Village Communities period within the Neolithic Age. The Hilar Caves are located within the boundaries of Sesveren Pinar of Ergani district of Diyarbakir province. It remains unclear who the reputed author, known only as Mortis, was exactly. For example there is confustion as to exactly when he existed. The confusion coming in part from the over eight thousand year distance between the text and the source of its hieroglyphs. The text and its contents certainly reflect the attitude and events of the third and fourth centuries CE, yet the text also makes clear reference to events from before direct recorded history, perhaps related over millennia through an oral tradition that ties back to the Hilar Cave culture. However, the notion that a religious tradition could have existed over the duration of eight millennia is highly controversial at this time. Analysis on the manuscript and the archological sites of the Hilar Caves and Diyarbakir Castle continues.
The Diyarbakir Codex was secured by the Mortis Consortium in 1986, by two Americans, Carl Freeman and Mr. Gregg T. Burgess who wanted to preserve an important text of antiquity, written in the ancient Aramaic Estrangelo script. Mortis Consortium believes the Diyarbakir Codex to originate from the library of the Diyarbakir Castle and Fortress.
|
| | | | |
|
| |
