The Tsukhrut Gospel, which is one of the valuable examples of Armenian medieval miniature art, has been given a new life.
Since the local residents considered the Gospel to be the guardian of the village, attributed numerous miracles to it, and were not willing to part with it even temporarily, the staff of the Matenadaran restoration department went to the village themselves, and from October 8-18, restored the 10th-century manuscript Gospel on site.
The Tsukhrut Gospel is an Armenian handwritten parchment that contains the four Gospels of the New Testament.
It was rewritten in the year 974. The place and the author of the miniature are unknown. The scribe was Ovannes, the author of the colophon and the recipient of the manuscript was Priest Yeghia.
The manuscript consists of 394 pages, has a silver binding, and thirteen miniatures. The manuscript is known for its unique expressiveness and high artistic merits, as well as its unique manuscript structure, which reflects traces of the ancient period of manuscript art.
The Gospel was transported to the village of Tsukhrut Akhaltsikhe from the village of Ilidja in Western Armenia, and since 1830 it has been carefully preserved and passed down from generation to generation as a relic of the village by the Sapodzhyanov family.
For the restoration of the manuscript, three Matenadaran staff members were sent to the high-mountain village: two restorers, Artur Petrosyan and Artavazd Ayvazyan, and biologist Lusine Margaryan.
They took an entire laboratory with them, and working tirelessly, they cured all the manuscript’s issues. The specialists also restored the cabinet where the Gospel was kept.
“This is a unique case where a manuscript is restored outside of Matenadaran, and the staff are working under not ideal conditions. However, considering that since the 1950s and 1960s attempts to transfer the manuscript to the Matenadaran have remained fruitless, this was the only way to save it,” noted the head of the Matenadaran Restoration Department, Gayane Eliazian.
The restoration work on the manuscript was carried out thanks to funding from the American Center for South Caucasus Studies, which was made possible through the diligent search of a student from the Brandenburg Technical University, Arusyak Baldryan.
Vigen Avetisyan
