About the Project

Syriaca.org invites scholars interested in promoting Syriac studies to join as collaborators in the creation of a new online reference work for the study of Syriac authors, literature, and manuscripts. If you are interested please follow the link above to contact us for further details.

What is Syriaca.org?

We are pleased to announce that an international team of scholars has begun work on a new online reference resource for the study of Syriac authors, texts, manuscripts, and historical research. The Syriac Reference Portal is designed to meet the needs of a variety of academic users ranging from specialists in Syriac and related fields to students and the general public.

Specifically, the Syriac Reference Portal will bring together in an information hub the following resources:

• an ontology or classification system for Syriac studies
• a multi-lingual authority file for standardizing references to Syriac authors, texts, and place names
• an online encyclopedia
• a gazetteer of maps and geographic information related to Syriac studies
• a classified bibliography

The above resources will be available in the first generation of the Portal. In later development, we will open these resources up for collaborative augmentation and annotation by scholars around the globe. In subsequent rounds of development, we will continue adding to the hub by linking additional digital content to the hub – for example, the electronic journal of Syriac studies, Hugoye, and the electronic corpus of Syriac literature being prepared at Brigham Young University. We will also add new tools such as a prosopographical component and, ultimately, the long-desired goal of a union catalogue for Syriac manuscripts.

How will it be useful?

The Syriac Reference Portal project was conceived to produce tools and reference resources that will overcome some of the access and discovery problems which currently impede scholarly research on Syriac language, cultures, and history. The principle objectives are threefold:

• to compile and organize core data related to the study of Syriac sources
• to create digital tools for widely disseminating this data and facilitating further research
• to create an online hub (cyberinfrastructure) to assist future research in the field of Syriac studies

Who will use it?

The final product will benefit a variety of users. For students and the interested public, it will provide access to basic reference information about the historical, cultural, and religious diversity of the Middle East. For academics in general, it will generate new scholarly interest in Syriac sources by making research on Syriac accessible without the need for extensive facility in Syriac. Finally, by opening new levels of access to the sources through new discovery tools, the Syriac Reference Portal project will not only support the current research aims of specialists in the field, but even offer new ways of conceptualizing the historical evidence...