Andrew Palmer came down from Oxford in 1977 with a Double First in Classical Greats. He spent 1977-8 in Tur Abdin and Munich, preparing himself to write a thesis in the history of Syriac monasticism. With a D. Phil. from Oxford (1983), he went on to write Monk and mason on the Tigris Frontier: The early history of Tur Abdin (Cambridge 1990). Since then he has published more than a hundred articles on the history of Mesopotamia and on Syriac literature. In 2009, for example, in L' historiographie syriaque, ed. M. Debie [acute accent on the last {e}], appeared his 'Les chroniques breves [grave accent on the first {e}] syriaques', which expands on what he (and Robert Hoyland) wrote on the Syriac minor chronicles in The seventh century in the West-Syrian chronicles (1993). Recently he has specialized in editing and translating Syriac texts, including The Life of Barsawmo the Northerner and Bishop Israel's chronicle of the Ottoman Genocide. From January 2016 he will be employed at the Research Centre for Aramean Studies, University of Constance, to edit, translate and elucidate the Universal Chronicle by Gregorius Barhebraeus (died 1286).

• IntroductionThe confessional backgroundThe historical context (by R. H.)The textsChronology and Chronological tablesSelect bibliography of West-Syrian chroniclesAbbreviations, brackets, signsMinor West-Syrian ChronographyA record of the Arab conquest of Syria, AD 637Extract from a chronicle composed about AD 640Extract from the Melkite Chronicle (AD 642+)Extract from the Maronite Chronicle (AD 664+)Fragment of James of Edessa, AD 691/2A list of caliphs, composed after AD 705A chronicle of disasters dated AD 716 (tr. S. P. B.)A list of caliphs from the Arabic (AD 724+)Extract from an 'Account', written in AD 775Extract from the Chronicle of Zuqnin, AD 775Inscriptions of Ehnesh, late eighth centuryExtracts from two chronicles up to AD 819/846Dionysius of Tel-Mahre Secular History, introductionConcordance of the contentsExtract from the Chronicle of AD 1234Two Apocalyptic Texts of AD 691+ (by S. P. B.)Extract from the Apocalypse of Ps.-MethodiusThe Edessene Apocalyptic FragmentEpilogueAppendices, Index and Maps