Armenian palaeography is a branch of palaeography that examines the historical development of Armenian script forms and lettering. It also encompasses a description of the evolution of Armenian writing.
The Armenian alphabet was devised in 405 in the cities of Edessa and Samsat by the scholar-monk Mesrop Mashtots. As is the case with other writing systems worldwide, the graphic layout of Armenian letters has undergone some changes in over 1600 years. The four principal graphic forms of Armenian writing during the Middle Ages are Erkat'agir, Bolorgir, Notrgir and Shghagir. The first of these is an all caps form, while the other three are minuscule forms of lettering. The most prevalent forms were Erkat'agir and Bolorgir. Within each of these forms, certain variations are possible.
History of the study
Background
Some researchers posit that the origins of the classification of handwritten scripts can be traced back to the earliest discussions on the art of writing, as documented in the earliest Armenian works on grammar. Towards the end of the 5th century, the Art of Grammar by Dionysius Thrax was translated into Armenian by the Hellenizing School. A number of medieval Armenian commentaries address this grammar and the broader field of grammar. The authors of these commentaries are David the Invincible, Anonymous, Movses Kertog, Stepanos Syunetsi, Grigor Hamam, and Grigor Magistros, who lived between the 6th and 11th centuries. The sixth section of Dionysius' work is entitled Writings. All Armenian commentators dedicated this section to the letters of the alphabet as well, titling it On the Writings (). The sections vary in length, ranging from one to six pages, and all address phonetic and other aspects of the 36 letters of the Armenian alphabet. Amam's commentary is the only one to provide a brief imaginative description of each of the Armenian letters. The most significant of the subsequent Armenian authors to engage with the subject of grammar were the 13th-century writers Vardan Areveltsi and Hovhannes Erznkatsi.
The later scholars of the Armenian alphabet, Rivola, Schroeder and Anonymous, were influenced, though not always, by this section of Dionysius' grammar, as well as by his Armenian translators and commentators. In addition to the aforementioned standard list of letters, these later authors also provided brief comments on the various fonts used to write in Armenian.
Paleographic issues, particularly those pertaining to the classification of scripts, have been addressed in a multitude of works collectively referred to as manuals for scribes. The earliest of these works was produced in the 12th century in Cilician Armenia and is attributed to Aristax Grich. It is entitled An Open Study of Various Words. A work by the 13th-century scholar Grigor Skevratsi, entitled Instruction on the Art of Writing, is also worthy of mention. In the 15th century, Gregory of Tatev composed commentaries on both authors. The differentiation between the different types of Armenian script is likely to have originated from such works, rather than from grammars. By the beginning of the 17th century, grammatical works on the Armenian language created in Western languages according to the Western scientific model included a classification of handwritten scripts.
Tables depicting foreign alphabets were already a popular phenomenon in Europe by the 16th century, even before the formation of palaeography as a scientific discipline at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. Among the earliest books to include references to the Armenian alphabet is Recueil d'anciennes écritures, compiled in 1566-1567 by , secretary to King Charles IX of France. The 21st sheet of this work contains an alphabet of Armenian origin, which Hamon states he copied from a collection at Fontainebleau. In 1623, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith published a brief Alphabetum Armenum, which included poorly written Armenian subheadings. In this brief pamphlet, the alphabetical table occupies four pages, yet there is no mention of the font types used.
In the earliest scientific literature on the subject, the names of Armenian medieval writing forms can be found. These discussions date back to the proto-palaeographic period. In 1624, published his Grammar of the Armenian language, in which he discussed three forms of Armenian writing: bolorgir (Poluerchir, Orbicularis nempe littera), notrgir (Noderchir, idest, Notariorum littera) and erkat'agir (Erghathachir, Ferrea ... littera). Scientific discussions on the types of Armenian scripts continued during the emergence of palaeography as a scientific discipline at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. In 1711, Johann Schröder dealt with palaeographic issues in the section De Orthographia of his work The Treasures of the Armenian Language. Schröder gave a one-page table of the different forms of Armenian script with comments. In 1730, an anonymous author prepared a grammar of the Armenian language in French, which also contains a section on Armenian writing styles under the title De l'orthographe. In 1823, in the section Des Lettres, des Syllables, et des Signes orthographiques of his voluminous Grammar, the head of the Armenian language department of the School of Oriental Languages in Paris, , provided general data on the different types of Armenian writing and their use. The latter compared the evolution of the Armenian script with that of different types of Latin scripts. In a pioneering move, Jrpetian proposed a periodisation of the development of each type. Paleographic issues are also addressed in Mesrop Ter-Arutyunyan's Grammar of the Armenian Language, published in 1826. Mekhitarist Gukas Inchichian provides the most comprehensive analysis of the topic in the third volume of his Archaeological Description of the Armenian Land, published in 1835.
Beginning of scientific study However, Armenian palaeography has been an autonomous discipline since the end of the 19th century. The scientific study of Armenian palaeography commenced in 1898 with the publication of A. Tashyan's list of Armenian manuscripts from the Vienna Mekhitarist Book Depository and the first manual on Armenian palaeography. The impetus for its composition was the discovery of a Greek-Armenian papyrus in Egypt. The book provides a detailed account of medieval types of writings, including their historical nomenclature, chronology, and questions pertaining to palimpsests. Tashyan's classification of Armenian scripts has retained its scientific value to this day. In 1892, I. Harutyunyan published Armenian Letters, which considered some issues of Armenian palaeography. The history of Armenian letters and the art of the handwritten book are considered in the book The Art of Writing among Ancient Armenians by G. Hovsepyan (1913). This facsimile album contains 143 samples of Armenian writing from the 5th to 18th centuries, produced on soft materials such as parchment, stone, or metal. Hovsepian's work continues to be of significance to this day. Prior to the Soviet era, only two specialized works on Armenian palaeography were published.
Hrachia Acharian's Armenian Letters (1928) offers a comprehensive analysis of the historical development of Armenian writing, from its origins to its graphic evolution. The book is a significant contribution to the field of palaeography. In his book, Acharyan makes use of the works of Tashyan and Hovsepyan. K. Kafadarian's book, The Original Forms of Armenian Writing (1939), is of certain scientific value. The topic of the origin of Armenian letters and their connection with Aramaic letters is the subject of A. Perikhanian's article, To the Question of the Origin of Armenian Writing. A. Abrahamyan made a significant contribution to the study of the history and graphic evolution of Armenian scripts with his 1959 monograph, The History of Armenian Writing and Script. The latter section of the text deals with the issues of abbreviations, ideograms, cryptograms, and so forth. Stepan Melik-Bakhshyan's Armenian Palaeography was published in 1987. Additionally, G. Levonyan, Levon Khacheryan, E. Aghayan, and others have also contributed to the field of Armenian palaeography A significant contribution to the study of the subject was the publication between 1960 and 1973 of the Code of Armenian Inscriptions, comprising four volumes.
In 2002, the Album of Armenian Palaeography was published by M. Stone, D. Koyumjian and H. Lehman. The work was duly acknowledged as a significant contribution to the field of Armenian studies. An Armenian version of the album by Gohar Muradyan and Aram Topchyan was published in 2006.
Armenian script
The Armenian language employs the original Armenian alphabet, which was created in 405 by the scientist and priest Mesrop Mashtots. Its emergence marked a significant turning point in the spiritual development of Armenians. Initially, the alphabet consisted of 36 letters, 7 of which conveyed vowel sounds and 29 of which conveyed consonants. In this composition, the signs are presented in the Old Armenian translation of the Art of Grammar by Dionysius Thrax, which was completed in the second half of the 5th century. The same order and number are observed in the acrostics of the 7th-century poets Komitas Aghtsetsi and Davtak Kertogh. The Armenian alphabet precisely reflects the phoneme structure of the Armenian language, which has remained largely unchanged for over 1,600 years. Researchers such as Hübschmann, Meillet, Markwart and others have described it as "the most perfect phonetic writing for its time". The addition of two letters, Օ and Ֆ, occurred in the 11th century.The first example of the letter օ is from 1046 in the word փափագանօք, the first example of the letter ֆ is from 1037 in the name Մուֆարզին
Theories abound regarding the origins of the Armenian script. Some scholars have proposed that Mashtots may have adopted or utilized Greek, Middle Persian, or Aramaic scripts as a foundation for the Armenian script. Muller postulated that the Armenian script originated from the Semitic peoples and Avesta. Sevak proposed the possibility of a South Semitic origin. Subsequently, Olderogge identified parallels between the Armenian and Ethiopic scripts. According to the aforementioned sources, the majority of scholars attribute Mashtots' alphabet to either the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) or Aramaic alphabets. Such specialists include Marquart, Junker, and Peters. Jensen posits that the degree of influence of these graphical patterns on Armenian writing remains unclear. Gamkrelidze posits that the letters of the Armenian script were the result of the original creativity of their creator, operating according to a certain principle. This principle does not preclude the possibility of using available graphic samples of different writing systems. Muravyov postulates the complete independence of the Armenian script.
The oldest monuments of the Armenian script
The earliest surviving monuments of Armenian writing are of significant importance for the development of a methodology for describing the evolution of Armenian writing. The earliest surviving example of Armenian epigraphy is the inscription of the feudal lord Saake Kamsarakan, carved on the temple in Tekor. This inscription is dated to at least 490 CE, which places it at the latest in the period of time following the death of Mashtots, the inventor of Armenian script. The inscription is not clearly dated, but the second line mentions Catholicos John Mandakuni as the founder of the monastery, who held this position between 478 and 490. In addition, among the earliest Armenian inscriptions, scholars distinguish an inscription from Dvin of the 6th century and an inscription from the Saint Hripsime Church of 618. Additionally, an undated Armenian inscription from the 5th century and a mosaic from the 5th to 6th centuries have been preserved in the Holy Land.