Association pour la Promotion de l'Histoire et de l'Archéologie Orientales. Mémoires – serie

The library of St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai holds a remarkable series of documents issued over several centuries by the authorities of Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt to guarantee the protection of the monks. The decrees issued at the highest level, for example by the Mamluk sultans, have been studied. This present study concentrates on eighteen documents of the Mamluk period, not before edited, which were issued by officials of lower rank. After an introduction, which briefly presents the monastery, its archive and general comments on the diplomatic of the documents, the text of each is established and translated into English with a commentary. The form and style of the documents are compared to those of relevant examples found in the scribal handbooks, including an unpublished work by the son of al-Qalqashandi. These documents not only reinforce the general aims of the sultanian decrees but also deal with some specific issues, the security of the monks and their ability to carry on commercial activity, and demonstrate a secondary level of administration that gave effect to orders from the centre. The original texts are fully reproduced.

La construction du barrage de Techrine dans la haute vallée de l'Euphrate, au nord de la Syrie, a donné lieu à des fouilles de sauvetage archéologique. C'est dans le cadre de cette opération que Tell al-'Abr a été fouillé pendant cinq campagnes, entre 1989 et 1993, par une mission syrienne dirigée par Hamido Hammade. Le présent volume est le rapport de fouille définitif. Il contient la publication de toutes les découvertes, accompagnées de chapitres d'analyses de laboratoire. La richesse des résultats obtenus permet désormais de considérer Tell al-'Abr comme un site de référence important pour la période d'Obeid en Syrie. Tell al-'Abr was excavated in the frame of the salvage excavations carried out during the building of the Teshreen dam on the upper Euphrates valley in the north of Syria. A Syrian team, directed by Hamido Hammade, excavated the site during five seasons between 1989 and 1993. The volume is the final excavation report. It contains the publication of all archaeological discoveries and chapters concerning the laboratory analysis. Because of the richness of the results, Tell al-'Abr could be considered now as an important reference site for the Ubaid period in Syria.