The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, commonly referred to as the Matenadaran, is a repository of ancient manuscripts, research institute and museum in Yerevan, Armenia. It holds one of the world's richest depositories of medieval manuscripts and books which span a broad range of subjects, including theology, philosophy, history, medicine, literature, art history, and cosmography in Armenian and many other languages.
The earliest mention of the term matenadaran, which means "repository of manuscripts" in Armenian, was recorded in the writings of the fifth century A.D. historian Ghazar Parpetsi, who noted the existence of such a repository at Etchmiadzin Cathedral, where Greek and Armenian language texts were kept. After that, however, the sources remain largely silent on its status. Thousands of manuscripts in Armenia were destroyed over the course of the tenth to fifteenth centuries during the Turkic-Mongol invasions. According to the medieval Armenian historian Stepanos Orbelian, the Seljuk Turks were responsible for the burning of over 10,000 Armenian manuscripts in Baghaberd in 1170.
In 1441, the matenadaran in Sis, the capital of the former Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, was moved to Etchmiadzin and other nearby monasteries. As a result of Armenia being a constant battleground between two major powers, the Matenadaran in Etchmiadzin was pillaged several times, the last of which took place in 1804. Eastern Armenia's incorporation into the Russian Empire in the first third of the nineteenth century provided a more stable climate for the preservation of the remaining manuscripts. Thus, "a new era started for the Etchmiadzin Matenadaran. The Armenian cultural workers procured new manuscripts and put them in order with more confidence." Whereas in 1828 the curators of the Matenadaran catalogued a collection of only 1,809 manuscripts, in 1914 the collection had increased to 4,660 manuscripts. At the outbreak of World War I, all the manuscripts were sent to Moscow for safekeeping and were kept there for the duration of the war.
In 1922, the manuscripts that had been sent to Moscow were ordered to be returned to Armenia. Combined with other collections, they were declared a property of the state. In 1939, the collection was moved to Yerevan and stored at the Alexander Miasnikyan State Library. Finally, in 1959, the government agreed to establish a repository to maintain and house the manuscripts in a new building, which was named after Saint Mesrop Mashtots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, in 1962.
Construction was completed in 1957. The exterior was constructed of basalt but parts of the interior were made of other materials such as marble. In the 1960s, the statues of historical Armenian scholars, Toros Roslin, Grigor Tatevatsi, Anania Shirakatsi, Movses Khorenatsi, Mkhitar Gosh and Frik, were erected on the left and right wings of the building's exterior. The statues of Mesrop Mashots and his pupil are located below the terrace where the main building stands.
The Matenadaran now has a collection of nearly 17,000 manuscripts and 30,000 other documents. They have a very skilled restoration department, which is not open to the public, but because of Theo's connections we were able to visit it and see how they restored seemingly "impossible" works to a new state, as well as trying to re-restore manuscripts and books that had been badly restored in the past. Quite fascinating for us to see this.
Theo with Pembroke in front of the Museum
Click on any of the thumbnails to get a bigger version of the picture
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