 Yes, that's we'll take everything slowly where those of us in our time zone of this is the evening so we have between now and our bedtime this not much more to do so anyway so let me welcome you all to this very special occasion. Namely, a lecture by Dr Erica Hunter, who is not just affiliated research at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge claims in Cambridge. She and not the only machine senior lecturer here so as for for many years, but she is also the founder of the Center of World Christianity, so this is a very it's a great honor to have you here as our speaker this evening. I have a long list of publications that I could mention in this context, going back until 1989 I think, which all deal with the history of Christianity in in the Middle East, but especially the the Eastern Orthodox tradition. That that we find in Syria in Iraq, and you have contributed to a great number of publications as of edited volumes as author, as well as in encyclopedic publications so you have a track record a publications record, which stretches back into the 1980s and the lecture tonight can therefore be regarded as a summary, a subtotal of your academic achievements to date. So I, having said this I don't want to waste in more words and I would like to pass the word to you as the speaker of tonight's seminar. Well, thank you very much Lars and can everyone hear me. Yes. Right. Well, I put the slide show up. Have you got that. Have I shared the slide show. Not yet. No. Well, hang on. How do I do this. On the green tab. Back to meeting. Oh dear. Back to meeting. Right. Right. Share screen, of course. I've just right. So it's a great pleasure and I can see many friends from many years. I won't say old friends, long standing friends from all sorts of different walks of my academic career. And thank you very much Lars and one of the great pleasures has been that Lars has been very active in taking over the center of world Christianity. I rather feared that it might slide into oblivion like so many different aspects. So I did two years ago, but Zoas has survived. The center has survived and Lars has worked very actively in a whole range of different regions to promote the concept of world Christianity. But I'm going to take us now to an area that has been a main interest of mine for many years and is continuing interest to the Christian presence at Torah Farn, which we are dating back to the tongue dynasty. IE the seventh, eighth, ninth century. So I have a slideshow and I shall press the green button to share the screen. Right. Desktop two and we go back. Right. Oh dear. I want to go back to. Well, the title of my talk, of course, is a trans transending time and territory. And basically I'm looking at material from Torah Farn that is intricately connected with northern Mesopotamia. And for those who are and can you see the slide. It's clear. Not yet. Yes. Good. So Torah Farn where the arrow. It goes. Pointing up to the Turkey and we go empires. That is Torah Farn and Oasis in a very inhospitable region. And it was, of course, a major center of the we go kingdoms in the eighth, ninth century. And of course today still has a weaker population that you may have, of course, read about in the paper. Erica, Erica, could you try to share the slides because. I have. No. By the way, share screen. Yes. Oh, share. Terribly. Is that right? We can see a black screen now. Now. Yes. Fantastic. Thank you. Yes. Good. Right. So let's go back. Right. That's just that is the site of Torah Farn. I took it in. Two thousand and twenty two. No, not two thousand and twenty two, about 10 years ago, the Chinese excavated last year. And so there will be some very exciting material emerging from that site in the distance. You can see, of course, modern Torah Farn. So. As the title says, connecting Syriac prayer amulets from Torah Farn with northern Mesopotamian communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. So. Just to give you an idea of the map, this is where Torah Farn is. And it, of course, was on the northern Silk Group leading to the tunnel capital at the sea. The Germans excavated for seasons at Torah Farn. But these material that I deal with comes basically from the second and third expedition. You can see the members of the of the German Torah Farn expedition. Albert von Le Coq and Albert Grunewheidel, who is seated and various other members with, of course, members of the resident we go community. They found five hundred and nineteen Syriac fragments from a single location, but as is the case that so often so often the case in the early 20th century. We have actually no locus details. That is, of course, a great, well, it's a great shortcoming. The Chinese have excavated and found more than five hundred fragments, some of which are from what I have seen can be matched one or two can be matched with what we have found where they have found them. I don't know, but hopefully they have, of course, improved on the Germans lack of a provenance information. And that is the walls are standing to a great height. You can see my brick, all built my brick. And that's me with a Russian scholar, Alexei Murayev standing there. We both are acting as scales. So that's just to give you an idea where Tour de Farn is located on the western region of China, the Turkic region of China today. Now, just a brief summary of the five hundred and nineteen fragments, which I catalog with Mark Dickens, who, of course, many of you will know because he taught it so as and very high concentration of liturgical material. You would expect that from a monastery. You can see exemplars from the liturgical books, the hoodra and the Gaza. So we have got rich insight into the ecclesiastical cycle of the Church of the East. These fragments identified the site as the Church of the East. It wasn't known previously what denomination, to which denomination the monastery belong, but it is definitely Church of the East for various reasons. The upper fragment is a strange looking piece, which we puzzled about, but it is a calendar, a calendrical tables to calculate the dates of feasts. And solters and lectionaries, the sort of repertoire of material that one would expect from a monastic foundation. Very few hagiographies that was a surprise, because as you will see the saints figure very prominently at the Tour de Farn in the memory at Tour de Farn. Most of the hagiographies were written in Syriac, and my colleague Nicholas Sims Williams, of course, has devoted his energies to publishing this material. We do have a hagiography of Bar Shaba, the purported founder of the Church of the East at Marv, and also Saint George. Saint George is extremely popular, also found in Sogdian and Uighur. Some pedagogical materials, particularly, and that is the middle slide, a dialogue between a Christian and a Jew discussing aspects of the Trinity. Now this clearly was not a dialogue that took place actually, but it is a pedagogical exercise. And what is interesting is that the scribe has made mistakes, and you can see the arrow where he corrects himself in his text. So these are nice little codicological features. And of course, interestingly enough and curiously enough, we have pharmaceutical recipes for hair treatments. We're still wondering why we have these recipes for hair treatments. They must have been part of a greater pharmacopoeia, which we don't have, possibly that material will emerge. And some of the ingredients you would not care to put on your hair, but it's very valuable for showing their recipes. So amongst this material, and of course the liturgical material was known, and some scholars already addressed, for example, the dialogue between the Christian and the Jew, and the Jew, Nicholas Marroth, addressed that material. But amongst the material that wasn't recognised emerged a small but interesting group of fragments that have been identified as prayer amulets. As I said, this material was previously unknown and unrecognised. The prime use, of course, were for protection against evil spirits, prophylactic purposes, therapeutic purposes, and of course the concept of illness being diagnosed as a result of demonic possession. That concept, which we might find somewhat removed from our own society, very entrenched, not just in Torah fun, but right across through to the Middle East. Now the prayer amulets occur into formats, a scroll format and a codex format. And as we will see, the format relates to their usage. And I think this is a very interesting aspect and showing the users of this material. Now we have a growing number of prayer amulets being found. Some of them were found within the monastery site at Zipan, but others without, in nearby foothills and also at Golchong, which is of course cultural, the capital city of the Uighur kingdom, where of course you can see this image. So the distribution, although we don't have actual locusts and find spots, is indicative of how this material was used. Some of the prayer amulets, and when we were cataloging, Mark said to me, Erika, you know, we have a fragment beginning with John chapter one. And I immediately became very excited because actually what is interesting that amongst the biblical material, very, very little gospel material, significant quantities of Psalms, which one would expect, and also Old Testament material, very little gospel material, so I was very interested. And then I realized that the top and the red line will show you that, sorry, the red line should move down. This is my, well, it starts in the beginning was the word, that's the opening of John one. And on the last line, you see by the prayer of Martin Zeiss and then the broken word, the martyr. So this was extremely exciting. Now we cataloged the fragments sequentially. So this was sort of coming towards the end of our cataloging. And we discovered through the paleographic analysis that the handwriting matched that of a much earlier fragment that we had cataloged Syriac HT 99, they are dislocated. So they both of those fragments belong to a much larger piece, which for some reason was recycle. And you can see clearly on Syriac HT 99, the straight edges that has been cut. And what is interesting and you can see the translation which I have produced, which shows that words are just cut in half. So what is interesting is that the meaning of the text was not cardinal. It didn't matter that the words were cut. It had a potency over and above the actual meaning of the words. So we pieced, we were very excited to find this first tiny little fragment. And as you can see, I became very excited because my first article which last was in 1987. And it was on the anathema genre. And I recognized what it was from that article written so many years ago. So it was an on the back when we turned it over and you can see clearly the folds on the back but it's what we call the strip or a scroll. I'm sort of veering between the two terms strip amulet or a scroll amulet, but beautifully located in the center, even if the drawing is rather rudimentary, is this clear cross of the east. And I have put the very on the left, the very fine example of the the East Syrian cross at the apex of the Ziyan for stealing a beautiful example of the the church of the East cross mounted on the lotus. And here you see the same sort of foliate design. So it's a crude, but it's a vernacular drawing and that's exciting. So it's clear that the this prayer amulet was folded up, and the cross may indicate this way up but it certainly when you do fold would you can't fold it because it's on the glass, all of these fragments around the glass. It would have, it would have been on the exterior. So, Syriac HT 99 was the very first and it is still my favorite prayer and it was a personal item cut down from a much larger piece. And it doesn't actually name the same. And this is interesting. We'll see this coming later on. The only part now remaining that names my Tom's East is Syriac HT 330, which was discarded. So what is interesting is that we have the two fragments, whether this fragment was being prepared, or was used by a monk, but we do have the two fragments sadly despite the approaches, we never could find the intermediate material, maybe the Chinese will. I don't know, but it is interesting that this was in the monastery. Maybe it was under preparation. Maybe it was a personal item of one of the monks. So the, we have very few biographical details about my Tom's East. He is still commemorated by the Church of the East on the eighth Wednesday after epiphany. However, as my notes say, there are usually only seven weeks after epiphany. So it's a very rare celebration, but he is in the Syriac. The Church of the East calendar, and the Archbishop of Canterbury's mission in 1894 printed this you can find copies of this, the Sugata Merspala, which does mention my Tom's East so he was a historic figure from northern Mesopotamia. And I have asked from the patriarch down if they have any other references to my Tom's East and they haven't, but they're, you know, I've said just do alert me if you come across anything. Probably a corruption of Thimosius, who was mentioned by two Syriac manuscripts, which record the dialogues and letters between Thimosius and John the solitary, who was a ninth century northern Mesopotamian saying, often confused with the much more famous John of Lycopolis in Egypt. We don't know the details of my Tom's East, but it's clear he had a northern Mesopotamian connection. The British Library Edition 14653, written in Syriac, dated to the 9th or 10th centuries. Again, a provenance from northern Mesopotamia includes, on a fly leaf, a prayer amulet entitled, Further the Prayer of my Tom's East the Martyr. It's interesting that this is included in this manuscript, which is a hagiography and includes the life of Eugenius and Paul of Thebes. So it's a hagiographical volume. So that is the only other reference I have found to my Tom's East. I would have thought that a prototype of the prayer amulet probably was imported from Mesopotamia to Tour de Farn, hung as the British Museum manuscript instructs on the pilgrim or monk who travelled the long journey along the Silk Road or Roots, roads from Mesopotamia. However, the Syriac HD 99 and its counterpart 330 are not imports. They are written in situ. We know this from the paleography and I have been working on an article that will come out in publication about the vernacular writing at Tour de Farn. And this is where the prayer amulets are very important because they are examples of vernacular writing, which isn't always so clear from liturgical items that usually in a lovely book hand. And it's very hard to locate from where they originated, could be nerve, could be Mesopotamia. But the paleography of these prayer amulets enables us to see the vernacular paleography from Tour de Farn. So it was not an import. And the actual Vita of my Tom's East may have been lost, but he was still remembered in prayer and handbooks of prayer amulets that the Christian communities in northern Mesopotamia used until the 20th century, when they were largely dislocated from their homeland. And he was unlike Tour de Farn, where there isn't any particular attribution. It's a more generic application against ailments and ills. He was associated with combating lunacy and this Cyclops figure on the left. The wonderful one I figure is the daughter of the moon. So there my Tom's East is spearing and my Tom's East is on the right here. His name. He is spearing the daughter of the moon. And that is the typical sort of iconography. So he was remembered and he's remembered quite frequently. There is certainly a tradition of remembering my Tom's East, how he became acquainted with the daughter of the moon I have yet to discover. The iconography is also something that we do not find on the the tour of our material. This is a characteristic of all the handbooks from northern Mesopotamia that emerges. When it emerges is still a moot question, because the earliest material we have from the communities in northern Mesopotamia is now mid 18th century. So some centuries after the Tour de Farn material, which is probably, it hasn't been dated, but probably 11th 12th century could be earlier, could be slightly later, but I would put 11th 12th centuries. Now, come on. So the courtesies I said, we're used by the Christians, and they and these were manuals used by the priests and the codex form is extremely important. We do have strip or scroll amulets, prayer amulets from northern Mesopotamia 19th century. So that distinction still continued in those communities who wrote items for grateful parishioners and beyond. And this is an interesting aspect. We were always talking about interfaith dialogue. And there is an aspect of interfaith dialogue in the commissioning of these items. And I quote from Justin Perkins. For artists shy, we rode to Alchi and attended a meeting at that village. I dined with the priests of the village. While at dinner, a Muslim from the vicinity came in and stated that his, I'm sorry, his cow, not his coof, his cow refused to yield her usual quota of milk, and requested the elder priest to prescribe some charm to remedy the evil. The priest took a spoonful of salt in his hand, repeated over it prayer and gave it to the Muslim and to administer to his cow. The priest Yochanan was much mortified by this superstitious conduct of his clerical brother and apologized by saying that they have an old book which teaches them many such foolish practices. Now that last sentence is a very valuable piece of information, as is the whole description. I just love it. I think it's a wonderful example of interfaith dialogue, if I may say so. And of course, Ma Tomse's depiction as a writer's saint is typical. Saints in this repertoire from the 18th, 19th centuries, we do not find this iconography, as I have said, at Tour of Farn. The only iconography one finds at Tour of Farn at the cross, the cross of the Church of the East. But there you can see various depictions of Ma George who of course was an extremely important character, combating the Tamina, which is the dragon, a snake like, and of course this wonderful image of Ma George. But actually I hadn't captured that that was taken in the Yazidi village and Yazidi elders were having their lunch underneath this wonderful image of Ma George. So the whole repertoire of writers, saints, mounted saints, combating various demonic entities was a very rich aspect of the community's life in Northern Mesopotamia. We don't have that rich imagery at Tour of Farn. How this develops is an area that needs to be worked on, but I'm not an art historian as interesting as it may be. Now, as well as Ma Tomsis we also found a paramount to Ma Cyprian at Tour of Farn. And I have chosen this example because we have two such exemplars. One is a Codex form, the Syriac HT 102 Codex and on the left hand side in 364 to 5, which is a scroll. We have also a soviet fragment published by Nicholas Sims Williams in 396, which mentions the anathema of Ma Cyprian in mid text and I quote, and may this anathema book and writing be sealed, the anathema of the Holy Ma Cyprian. And that's very interesting that the soviet mention. So the here, where the red line is, if you have to shift it up slightly, I don't know if I can do that. Whoops, what have I done now, go back. It identifies the anathema of the first word, the is the anathema of and then Ma, Ma Cyprian and Cadetia the same and up here likewise in 365 and in 364 the when they were these fragments were originally glassed the good assistants put the, put the label identifying labels upside down because they can read the script. So this is why the captions are upside down but the actual fragments are the right way up so they're both to Ma Cyprian, Ma Cyprian and Ma Cyprian. And we are the codex fragment was found at the monastery site, and I suggest it was part of a handbook of prayer emulates the scroll was found in the foothills north of the monastery and see upon a play or tour fun. Now the Germans were not particular in particular in the locus identification, but they did actually identify, and that's extremely useful material that was found at the monastery site proper and material that was found in the, the surrounds. So this small, again, a strip amulet or prayer amulet or scroll amulet was found somewhere in the vicinity. And again, it's just, it's a prayer. It's an amulet that has been two pieces of dislocated pieces, a much larger piece. So what is a really interesting and actually was very helpful when one was trying to read the the fragment was you can see, I mean it's a unique feature at tour fun, the red dots separating each word. So that is a very specific and unique feature. You see the anathema of context, and it says in the name of course, by the prayer of the saint, who, as he was celebrated in this world I martyred, he requested from our Lord Jesus Christ, and he gave him his request. There's a phrase to you God in heaven and on earth, that something that hangs on him. And I suggest, again, this is the usage of the item, your servant merciful God mark mark now would be Marco printer directed his mind to God. So of course it's very. It's a broken text, but it has sufficient context to tell us that it has the classic genre marks, or marks of the genre of the anathema. It was a personal item that was reused. And at the larger, you can see this is where the fragment actually ended the the anathema tomorrow. Here are two Soviet lines. Then there is a separate text liturgical text written in Syriac, and on the back is another Soviet text so it was clearly reused from its original purpose but the original purpose is an anathema, a prayer emulate. And then there's again for personal use, because of the of the use of the verb hangs. Now, the texts are not identical, despite both using the title of Mark Katrina, so they don't come from the same exemplar, but they do, of course, the scribes whoever wrote these and this is still a question that we are thinking about. It may be that there's a flexibility in writing the text certain features must occur, but otherwise there's a flexibility this happens very much in incantation balls it's a very elastic way. So you don't just necessarily copy the text verbatim texts are not identical, but they do share defining similarities. Similarities also occur in the 19th century exemplars which we also have. So this this prayer amulet is also found in the 19th century material. And the celebration of the saint, i.e. his crowning, the martyrdom, and that is the crux of the whole anathema at the at the point of martyrdom, he artist his prayer, and that releases the potency the request for for for the person who for who the prayer amulet has been commissioned and that is a defining feature so they always they always mentioned the celebration of the same crowning. And interestingly enough, both Syriac HT 102 and then 364 to five use this curious cause, or he directed his mind to God, but they use different for for for mine, which again shows that they're not derivative from a single exemplar, but there is there is elasticity in the circulation of this prayer amulet so there is some some there's some difference. The third exemplar, probably to mark screen has also emerged in the old tiny collection of Syriac fragments, which is now housed at Kyoto. Count Altani also brought back to Kyoto at the beginning of the 20th century, a handful of Syriac fragments. And until a year or so ago, it remained unidentified but my, my colleague, Japanese colleague Hidemi Takahashi has now worked on it and it is coming out in publication. It's from an unidentified location in Torfa, but again, I suggest in the surrounds. So even though we don't have the actual locus place, we are seeing a pattern of these this vernacular material being being used outside the monastery precincts. And here is the translation of Takahashi and I'm most grateful that he has allowed me to use this material. The Verso is actually the recto we looked at this together. And I said, look, the Verso is actually the recto and the recto is the Verso. But, you know, that's how the fragment has been catalogued. And again, people didn't realize. Again, we don't have the title of this strip or scroll. Now, interestingly enough, it is written on both sides. Most of the strip amulets are only one sided so it's very interesting that was written on both sides. And of course, again, it is a very fine example of the vernacular paleography of the area and I have included it in this study, which took a long time last year. And who knows how conclusive it will be because new materials always coming up, but to start to look at how Syriac is written at Torfa. And as he was celebrated in this world, so we don't know who the saint is. It doesn't actually say Takahashi, Hidemi Takahashi, thought that it was Mark Paprina, but as I said to him, well, this is a very standard formula for anathems. And it could be anyone. But sadly, we don't have the title. There would have been a title. As he was celebrated in this world, and he requested from God, and he granted him his request saying on the early day of Sunday. And on which and the little bit of all hideous evil and hateful deeds are dissolved, passed away and are annulled. And then on the recto and I think it's quite deliberate that on the recto it starts within the name of and it is of course the Hebrew name, you know, I am who I am. And then the angel rubber L various great one of God, I guess would be the translation, who is the head of all angels, which is interesting because it's not generally. It's not generally classified as an archangel is Michael and Gabriel of course and Raphael. So whether the be in the P got mixed up. Confused, we're not sure all fevers and all shivers and these evil and cursing spirits. And by the power of his Lord I drive your way evil spirit do not fall upon so and so, because I have authority over him forever. Now again, the upon so and so which is for those of you who are interested is is is here. This is the word is interesting because that also indicates a personal item, but the scribe hasn't you would normally insert the name of the person who could be male or could be female gender specific. So, and these are formulae that we find in the 19th century amulets from from northern Mesopotamia. So, clearly written for a person, an individual, but the individual isn't identified and whether it is market Prina or not. It is a very fine example of an anathema. And again, as I've mentioned earlier, if not an import, it is written in situ at Torah found or I would expect it would be. Now, whoops, the back of clicked too much. Again, this whole idea of removing illnesses and diseases and fevers. And what you can see in these prayer amulets from Torah found is it's a very generic application. Whereas by the 19th century, they do have a generic application, but there's also specific applications. For example, my time's ease with the daughter of the moon, I eluin the sea Marsire against rabbit dog. So they have categorized them to specific elements. These prayer amulets from Torah found are not they're very generic. And here are three pieces from a single fragment that I have pieced together. Unfortunately, I don't have the technical ability. You can actually join them into nice one nice fragment but I don't have that technical ability. So I've pieced them together. So you can see when we reconstruct the text. May you remove from him all illnesses and diseases and fevers and seizures and melancholy. Now that's really interesting because that's a Greek loan word. I've just underlined it here. Oops. Do I go back? Yes. Melancholy. That's really interesting. And the evil eye. We do have a mention of the evil eye and all those sufferings and pains. And then it goes on to quote Genesis two, eight and as an army. And we're not quite sure of the relationship between those two sections. The army is in rubric. You can't see it very well. And then the lower parts allow the reconstruction of Genesis. To verse eight, but you can see the generic nature which is clearly why to protect against a very wide range of illnesses, ailments, etc. And of course, prayer amulets certainly we use by the populace to refer and it surrounds. We also do have, we have found, or not we a prayer, a prayer amulet has been found a caracol to a Syriac prayer amulet so that's quite far removed. So I'm just hoping for more material to come in. This is a genre that has grown in the last, I would say, 10, 10 years or since 2010 when we first identified this. This is the enigma of Mark Tomse's. They were must, but there are derivatives of Syriac and exemptions that must have been brought from this betamia in the outreach mission of the Church of the East. We do have occasional saltion and we go examples in 396 which is saltion, but he's clearly modeled on a Syriac ball that will always have the material is actually modeled on Syriac models and you can see this by the syntax, etc. U328 found at Karutka in Turithan, which is Uighur. Mark has, Dickens has described as having an embedded magical text to be used for corraling a horse. It's an anomalous text and he has written a very fine and long article discussing this unusual amulet, a prayer amulet which is in Uighur. Syriac, and it's clear from the prayer amulets that it wasn't necessary to understand the text, so it wasn't a prescriptive. It had a prestige language. It was the language of the liturgy, and it had a potency in that capacity beyond the vernacular. I term these items para-liturgical because they have a personal individual application, whereas the liturgy is a public performance, so that they have a different application. But of course, the liturgy has many requests for protection and to stave off illness, for example 394, vespers and a complying from an office for martyrs, and interestingly enough, it has instructions to the priest in Sogni, so that he'd know where he was in the service, from a bilingual service book. And it says, I quote lines four, lines four to seven, mighty strong terrors there is to our people, marsurgius and mar-buckus to our people, marsurgius and mar, and I would be buckus because sirgius and buckus are always a combination. The power which prevails over all, which is released by the bones, protects our souls, where are we, protects our souls by night and by day. So this very, the martyr's bones had this potency of protection, and this is clearly expressed in the liturgy. So the prayer amulets or the anathemas will call them anathemas because they do belong to that genre, uphold the robust heritage of martyrdom that was really one of the hallmarks of the Church of the East and Syria, Christianity. So they're clearly situated within the Christian repertoire. They're antithetical to sorcery, magic, and other malevolent forces. This emerges in the terminology that they use. They act in a prophylactic preventative capacity. They have a paralyturgical function and here I depart from the train of thought of many colleagues who classify them as magical. I do not see them as magical. I see them as acting within the private domains of faith. There may be elements that of course are not what we might call the fact that you don't have to understand the language, doesn't put them into a magical capacity. It's a capacity of potency of mystery. And as I've said a few times, they act in a private individual capacity. They counterpart the public attestation of the liturgy, and they show a very active memory of the early church in the repertoire of martyrs whom they mentioned. What I would love to find, and we certainly find this in the prayer emulates from Northern Mesopotamia, that they do mention the great saints of the church, Anthony and in the Syriac repertoire, Ephraim and Bacchus and Sergius, although of course Ephraim was never martyred. And they do mention the great figures of the church, but they also mentioned, they've become very localized. They mentioned local saints, a long list of Mahjong's from Hera, from Hartra, from all sorts of localities that are now lost in the Hakari region. There must have been local saints. We don't find this to date up to a fan, it would be fascinating to know whether these prayer emulates did develop this sort of vernacular localized saints tradition. Looking to see that maybe there wasn't sufficient time span for this to develop. But they're very important windows into the personal belief of the communities, which we think died out in the 14th centuries. But of course, the tradition continued in Northern Mesopotamia amongst the communities. Now what has of course happened was that the emulates were brought, prayer emulates were brought to Turfan from the communities. The communities at Turfan died out, but the remnants in Northern Mesopotamia continued these practices, adapted them. There are a lot of Persian and Arabic loanwords in the 18th, 19th century prayer emulates which one doesn't find at Turfan. But what is important is until the discovery at Turfan, the earliest dated Syriac prayer emulates were mid 18th century, colorful evidence. And now we do know that this tradition went back to the early medieval period, the 11th, 12th centuries, possibly earlier, I'm still hoping to be able to carbon 14 dates, some of the prayer fragments of the paper fragments, they're all written on paper. So that indicates 9th century onwards probably. And so they take this tradition of a paralyturgical activity right back into the early medieval period, and probably earlier, and link of course with the great heritage of Northern Mesopotamia, which the material at Turfan certainly upholds. If you did not know that the material came from Turfan, you would place it in Northern Mesopotamia, so provenance is extremely important. And I shall end on that note, I've just got a lovely slide which was found at Nishapur in Khorasan, and a beautiful example of the Church of the East inkwell. One doesn't know whether the prayer emulates were written with such a fine specimen, but it is a very fine attestation of the decorative arts of the Church of the East, which of course, quite rare. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, dear Erika, for this impressive presentation. I was following every single slide, every single nine, and I have questions myself, but I think we should give the audience. And that's quite an impressive 25 people, the opportunity to ask questions first. So if you could please raise your electronic hand, then I can, anybody who would like to ask the first question. Okay, so I have a question to you, if I may ask. You mentioned at least in two places that there was an element of interreligious usage of these amulets. Do we know from research that scientists have concentrated on non-Christian traditions, that they have discovered a similar type of religious object that may well come from the Christian tradition, but that was appropriated by others. For example, in what I'm thinking of the usage of the evil eye in Islam and symbolism that transcends the so-called religious element in the communities that are religious communities. Have you come across anything in this direction? Well, at Tour de Farn, it's very difficult to know. We are hoping that the extensive excavations from both at Tour de Farn and north of the Tianjin Mountains at Beiting may open up a whole horizon of evidence. Of course, in northern Mesopotamia, there was a very rich interchange of traditions. As you saw in the image, the Yazidi men sitting beneath the image of St. George, and I understand that he holds quite a reputation amongst the Yazidi communities. I mean, there has always this area of vernacular prophylactic activity, which we might call has always been an area that is very rich. One thinks of Muslim women who would go to churches and still do go to churches. I assume they still do. They certainly did my time in Iraq for various elements. So I think this area, whereas the official boundaries of religion are much more high bound, the whole area of vernacular prophylactic activity has a flexibility. Potency being a very prime ingredient. I mean, to use a trite example, the chap comes in to ask for treatment for his cow. He just wants the cow to produce milk, and he's quite happy to transcend religious boundaries to get the result. Yes. Thank you very much. Yanu, yeah, we have a question from you. Oh, yeah, I got a similar question that I'm not sure it's a kind of also practice in the in the Persian church. It's common, because I have been read a book from Hong Kong, it's Luo Xianglin. He mentioned a passage, a kind of a Taoism. Taoism, incantations, something like that. It's a transmission. He suggests that it is a transmission from the Syriac context. So, I don't know, as Professor Niles mentioned, the evil eye maybe came from the idea of Islam. And also, if they have a possibility that the Taoism maybe also borrows this kind of a Syriac prayer monument. So, I don't know how, how it used, I mean, how it's kind of a theologically, it's functions. It's by other scholars may call it a magical, but how we can say it's not a magical, it's kind of a have they have a theological foundation for interpret this prayer monument. Also, how it's used because I don't know, I'm not sure the personal use you can recognize the Syriac or they can just speak it out or how to use in the I don't think it was important, it was rather like Latin in the medieval period where it really wasn't important to have a an understanding of the text as we would require now it just had its own prestige and its own potency. And so the very fact that this is what links me because we see in the range of literature at Tour de Farn, we find much Saltian material, all the saints lives are written in Saltian there's a wealth of saints lives in Saltian. We have very few in Syria, because of course the monks will read we're saltian speakers and we have we won material as well that Syriac has rather like Latin did has a prestige and a place as the liturgical language, and that is why I think that the prayer amulets are written in Syriac because it echoes that prestige and that potency and potency is an extremely important ingredient. I think in the religious apparatus. Now I have heard and I'm sorry I need to follow this up further that my George of course a Chinese scholar did did did publish on my George in in in in in in Dallas material, and of course various scholars have at the Zian force to leave to see what the interchanges with Buddhism Max D wrote a very fine book. Undoubtedly, there is interchange. What we have a tour of farm to date that's published doesn't really indicate that much, but let us see what the textual and archaeological material that hopefully will be shared from from the recent excavations that may throw a different life the the regrettable thing is that toward fun, the excavation at the monastery was very much a poor relation to the removal of the great artworks. In a tour of fun to of course and now in a large we have Manichean or Buddhist. So the really the the the monastery never received the attention that it deserves and let us hope that new horizons will develop with the with the new evidence that will come from the excavations. Thank you very much. This is a very. Oh, we have a question from Suha Rassam. Hello, Erica. Thank you for this wonderful presentation. You kept mentioning northern Mesopotamia. Can you explain which part I mean, and you related it to church of the East is the central. The center of church of the East was back down or to Sifon. So, when you say, no, in the 18th or 19th century, so hard, they were driven to this is very late. Where Muslim is that Muslim. No, I use it as a very widespread term to include. I guess the name of the planes. Even extending up to Bohtan in the now in Turkey, and of course the Hikari, and of course, we, the church of these communities like if we're of course caroled into the into the Hikari region. In the 14th, 15th century, so that's basically, I mean, it's a generic term to cover the artificial division of the region into countries by the. And, and, and it's a relationship to Turfan is it. It's not no longer the Silk Road in the 70s. I mean, why is it related to Turfan? Well, it was related in the earlier periods. Of course, the 14th century, that would have been cut off. I was making the point was this material emanates from northern Mesopotamia, where there is an extremely rich monastic heritage in the seventh, eighth, ninth centuries and earlier. And the outreach mission to the east and the territories east of the Euphrates right through what is now modern Iran, into Central Asia and into, of course, the Turfan region and further that material was taken from northern Mesopotamia. And where are the churches, of course, that did evangelize in the region, but not as far as Turfan, the Syrian Orthodox certainly were present in some parts such as Herat, now in northern Afghanistan, and the Melkites had a foundation at Tashkent. The Church of the East seems to have had the dominance. Now, whether that was linked in the Sasanid times with the court as a sort of a quasi extension because Marv was the the boundary of the Sasanid Empire, and it was very useful to have a quasi sort of institution between the East had a great prominence in the Sasanid period. It was a bit like the British Council, it's not actually diplomatic, but it serves a very useful function. And we do know that there were exchanges between the Sasanids and the Church of the East and the Battle of Talas, these sorts of intelligence that came from the Church of the East. So the Church of the East really has the dominance in what we might call the Iranian territories, i.e. the territories east of the Euphrates. And do we have these amulets in Northern Iraq? Well, we've got many men, quite many scholars are working on the handbooks and there are many now in Armenia because the communities that left in the early 20th century, you talk your personal items. And the one thing you would take, of course, was your prayer amulet to protect you from all sorts of evils. Which sort of period did they use the amulets? Well, they used them up until the 20th century. I am told by reliable sources. I haven't seen any. Well, I'm told by reliable sources and I shall not name them with very reliable sources within the Church of the East that they are still used. Really? Do they wear them like this or? I don't know. I've never seen them. But the use of prayer amulets is, of course, quite ubiquitous. When I was at Nippur with the Oriental Institute of Chicago excavating and the workmen there all told, they wouldn't show me, but they all said that they had prayer amulets pinned. Of course, they were sheer. So, I mean, it was a tradition. Now, the interesting point would be, and I don't know whether the Kulvian communities still use them. After all, the Kulvian communities only transferred from the Church of the East in the mid-16th century and then on and off and really consolidated in the mid-18th century, whether those communities that were more urbanized used them. But these prayer amulets, we do have dating and they do date back from, because of the Kulvian evidence, back to the mid-18th century. Thank you. But unfortunately, the example that I showed you from Justin Perkins, the very dismissive attitudes to this material meant that people either dissociated themselves from it. People thought, well, they were superstitious, etc., etc., or they went underground and they wouldn't show the material. Because my experience, I mean, I met my great grandmother who was born in the 1800s. And what I understood is that they were the cross. That was important for the Christians, even in the villages. But I haven't seen anybody who were something which is like an amulet. Maybe they had written things that I haven't seen. Well, yes. Well, we can discuss that later. But thank you very much, Suha. I have one question by Frank, your psychiatrist. Yeah, thank you. Can you hear me? You mentioned the British Council, you said, not diplomatic, but serves a useful quasi diplomatic function. You're thinking regarding these amulets and the relationship with the sale of indulgences and the way in which a community is bound by economic ties. It's very easy to throw around words like superstition and that sort of thing. Is it possible, and is there any internal evidence from the fragments that you have, which relate these amulets to payments? We can only surmise because the 19th century clergy definitely made a little bit on the side, we might say, from the writing of such items. We actually don't know. I suggest that these prayer amulets were written at the monastery from these codex handbooks. They're written into strips or scrolls of paper for individuals. I presume that the monks at the monastery wrote them, but we really don't know. And the passing of money is also an acknowledgement of authority. Yes. And so in respect, it functions as a binding of a community, doesn't it? In the possession of these amulets in different parts, away from a monastic community, it recognises the authority of the monastery and the values of the monastery over the lives of the individuals who have them. Well, the monasteries of course, and I was only discussing this question earlier today, it has a huge economic role. And the very fact that we also have these fragments of pharmaceutical recipes indicates of course the monastery has a therapeutic role, which of course has also been the case with monasteries. Yeah, so I don't know how they relate to each other, but there were two traditions of, and in fact, the Chinese scholar Lijuan Lin has linked some of the Syriac material with Galenic material. And so there does seem to be two traditions of what we might call medicine, because I actually do see these pyramids in the realm of medicine, psychological medicine, we might say, not remedies like you might have as the pharmaceutical recipes or the pharmacological recipes. So I think an interesting point would be, but I think we have to be a little careful not to adopt a Western monastic ideal of how a monastery functioned in France or Italy or even England to see how did the monastery function, or how did monasteries function in northern Mesopotamia in China, and a good parallel might come also from the Buddhist institutions. I really don't have any expertise in that area, but I can imagine that they are economic enterprises. And they acknowledge the value of the written word. Yes. And even if it's cut, even if you can't read it yourself, it acknowledges the authority of learning. That's right. It seemed very Jewish as well, the phylacteries and so were these amulets worn in any way or carried by, well, they'd probably wear out very quickly, wouldn't they? Well, as I said, the one that you can see that very lovely is the Syriac HT-19, which is folded. Folded, yes. It's clearly folded. There's a much larger manuscript, which I am the pre-amulet, which I didn't include in this talk from the emetage, and that is clearly folded as well. It's a much larger fragment. And I should have thought that they were possibly carried in a pouch or, and the Otani fragment talks about, you know, hang upon the sun. So now, whether it's what sort of, whether it's a pouch or even a silver piece of silver, which is so common today. You often find pieces of the Koran, et cetera, rolled up and placed in a silver capsule. So I should have imagined, if they were individual items, and I do think the Strip amulets are individual items, that they were personal items that were either carried or hung in the house. But of course, we just don't have any evidence. Possibly we might get some iconography or even more rare to find an example of a scrap in the house, but we just don't know. Is there any connection with the concept of pilgrimage, which also seems a very primitive concept of going to the, to the birthplace or the martyrdom, the site of martyrdom of any of these people and these, these, and the monasteries and their locations and so on. Anything of that. What a spudge wrote the translated in his book, The Monks of Kublai Khan, the two weagle monks who set out from Central Asia, not necessarily from Tour de Farn, there's a bit of a debate as to where they came from. And they were definitely going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they never got there because of political circumstances or what has changed in the Middle East. But one became the Patriarch Yabalha, the third of the Church of the East, and the other became Rabban soma was sent on diplomatic missions. This is in the 13th mid 13th century to meet the Pope, Philip, the bell, Philip the fourth, and it was the first on behalf of the Mongols, so they but their original intention was to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And then there may have been, we just again don't know, localized image sites. I would love to see evidence emerging of localized saints. Now this does emerge when I say that because I published with Chip Coakley very fine Syriac scholar. This is my K345, which is not like a KGB document, despite its title. And that's 61 folios from Tour de Farn and it is the largest fragment, it is carbon dated to the late eighth, ninth century so it is wonderful we have it stated very fragile paper now in Berlin. And it has a, and I have written about this the memory of the saints, and it talks about Bar Shabba, who was of course the purported founder of, or sorry, the purported bringer of Christianity to Merv, of course that great city at the edge of the Sasanid Empire. It's interesting that in the hagiographies at Tour de Farn, we and we do have a hagiography of Bar Shabba in Syriac and it was one of two hagiographies Bar Shabba and George, and he certainly prominent in the liturgy so I expect that there probably was some sort of localized cult emerging around this figure. What is very interesting, and I have to say, ignored by later scholars because I haven't read the material was that the manuscript actually says he brought Christianity, he established Christianity at Merv, but the evangelist was Queen Sherith, so it was a female evangelist. And so that's quite a different take to later historians, but he certainly, and she does too, they have a very prominent role in commemoration of the saints, it would be wonderful to see, we just don't know how long the time span of the church was, the church of the East, when it was founded, when it disappeared, I suspect it died out in the 14th century. When it actually emerges on the ground is still a debatable point. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, Suha, you have a question. No, just a commentary on the question that was asked us now at the pilgrimage. It's a very common practice in our communities in northern Iraq to visit the monasteries, the monastery or the saint have got a day until now they go, they call it share. They go in large numbers. And it's like a picnic. And it goes to very ancient times. And going to the monastery to ask for healing for, and in fact there is a very famous story, the cousin of Saddam Hussein, did not have a son and he went to Sheikh Mati, asking for a son and he had a son. And consequently he built the road to Sheikh Mati. When I was young, we had to walk up the mountain to reach it. And when he, this man had a child, they built the road. So we could go by car. So it was a very common practice to visit the monasteries and to visit to ask for healing. Yes, and I might add an addendum. That's a very valuable point that Suha has made. Some of the early English travellers, I read all their travellers talk about pilgrims coming, I think it's Tamar Bekhlam, and taking away parcels of dust from the martyrs' graves. The concept of martyrdom is such an intrinsic, an entrenched concept in the Church of the East, in the Chodian Church. And if this question of taking the person to the site of the Maataydam, it's Maar Bekhlam. You mentioned Maar Bekhlam, the story of Maar Bekhlam, he and his daughter were killed by their father. And after that, he became crazy, he lost his mind. And his wife took him to the site when the daughter and son were killed and he was healed. That's the legend we have about Maar Bekhlam and Sara. So this is 4th century. I mean, I can only imagine, and it's only speculation, that the monastery at Tour de Farde, of course it must have been one of a whole network. We just have found the evidence. And healing and therapy are really major aspects of monastic life and pilgrimage. We are hoping that the Chinese excavated north of the Tianxian Mountains at Beiting, and they've certainly found a Church of the East Church, the Tripartite Church. And they consider it to be a very important Church. So we are hoping that when the archaeologists will release their results, which might take some time if I know archaeological publications, that we can build a more constructive picture. There is very little evidence, but there is certainly enough material to suggest a localised usage of these, what we might call tradition, or what we might call a tradition of imported prayer amulets. It would be great to find any with localised saints, but we'll just have to see what material emerges. Thank you. Are there other questions? I would just like to take up the point that was made earlier on, namely on the possibility that Christian elements of faith or of material, of Christian material culture could have been mistaken for Buddhist ones, especially further to the east. Of course, some of us here are doing doctoral research in this direction, but I don't want to go into this. I was thinking of the 17th century, 18th century, when I did my own research, and I found that the descriptions of the so-called heretical material that was discovered by late imperial Chinese officials, that they could simply not tell the Buddhists from the Christian objects apart, because to them they had exactly the same form and exactly the same function. So we have to imagine that this is the area where religious traditions meet, and they, over the centuries, they become part of the local fabric. But of course, to the local believers, it would have been extremely important to know that they were derived from, in this case, Christian martyrs. Yes, anyway, more questions. If so, please raise your animated hands. Is there anything that you would like to add? Otherwise, I would like to thank you profusely for this very interesting, very successful and very, well, a presentation that will be widely distributed because it will be posted on the YouTube channel, and I'm going to advertise the link perhaps later this evening, depending on how long it takes to record it, but it will be preserved in all eternity. You will also have listeners in Russia because YouTube is still available in Russia. And it will be, we can certainly make a note of it on the website as well for the CWC. So, no more questions, no. Well, the Russians are actually there's a team in Moscow and I gave them a lecture last year, and they're very interested in working on this material because of course there are Syrian communities in Russia. I suspect some of this material might have come with them because people do transport this, so they're working on it. And despite all the shamanicans that are going along on at the moment, we maintain our support for Russian scholars. And all I'd like to say is thank you all of you for giving up time in an evening when you could be doing a host of other things. I'm really appreciative of your listening in and I hope that it's opened a new perspective on the spread of Christianity from the Middle East, but clearly with its clearly maintaining its ascertaining origins. These words. Thank you very much. Yeah, Erica, and thank you to everybody here in the audience. I'm going to stop recording now.