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Chronicle of Edessa
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<p>The <i>Chronicle of Edessa</i> is an anonymous history of the city of <a href="/facts/Edessa/JjSGwKtN">Edessa</a> written in the mid-6th century in the <a href="/facts/Syriac_language/mLhEtdSW">Syriac language</a>. "<i>Chronicle of Edessa</i>" is a conventional title; in the manuscript it is titled <i>Histories of Events in Brief</i> (<a href="/facts/Syriac_language/mLhEtdSW">Syriac</a>: ܬܫ̈ܥܝܬܐ ܕܣܘܥܪ̈ܢܐ ܐܝܟ ܕܒܦܣܝ̈ܩܬܐ, <i>Tašʿyātā d-suʿrāne a(y)k da-b-pāsiqātā</i>). </p><p>The <i>Chronicle of Edessa</i> is generally agreed to have been written around 540–550 CE. The <i>Chronicle</i> primarily used old Edessan royal archives as its source, as well as some more recent church records, and accordingly is thought to be historically reliable. It may make use of a lost history of <a href="/facts/Persia/24yukge8">Persia</a>. </p><p>It is extant only in an abbreviated version in a single manuscript, Vatican Syriac 163 (Vat. Syr. 163). This manuscript, from the <a href="/facts/Monastery_of_Saint_Mary_Deipara/JWntPf4e">Syrian Convent of Our Lady in the Wadi El Natrun</a>, was acquired by <a href="/facts/Giuseppe_Simone_Assemani/hIkl6jVt">Giuseppe Simone Assemani</a> during a trip to the Near East from 1715 to 1717 taken at the request of <a href="/facts/Pope_Clement_XI/lcxB7Pbz">Pope Clement XI</a>. Some excerpts of the lost full version of the text—sometimes called the <i>Original Chronicle of Edessa</i>—are preserved in other Syriac chronicles. </p><p>The <i>Chronicle</i> covers the period from the founding of the kingdom of <a href="/facts/Osrhoene/wAf46Umo">Osrhoene</a> in 133/132 BCE until 540, but few events are recorded before the 3rd century. The <i>Chronicle</i> picks up with a record of a flood of the <a href="/facts/River_Daysan/o2YunCht">river Daysan</a> during the reign of <a href="/facts/Abgar_VIII/ASxPp5yD">Abgar VIII</a> in November 201, which damaged a Christian church building in Edessa. This is the earliest mention of a building dedicated exclusively to Christian worship, as well as one of few records of Christianity in Edessa at this time. Unlike other <a href="/facts/Syriac_literature/Ne4umpD0">Syriac literature</a>, the <i>Chronicle</i> does not contain any legends of the <a href="/facts/Apostle_Thaddeus/kEpSyER3">Apostle Thaddeus</a>. </p>