The Matenadaran building
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Established | March 3, 1959 |
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Location | 53 Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan, Armenia |
Coordinates | 40°11′31″N 44°31′16″E / 40.19207°N 44.52113°E |
Type | Art museum, archive |
Director | Hrachya Tamrazyan |
Curator | Gevork Ter-Vartanian |
Website | www |
The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Armenian: Մեսրոպ Մաշտոցի անվան հին ձեռագրերի ինստիտուտ (Mesrop Mashtots'i anvan hin dzeragreri institut)), commonly referred to as the Matenadaran (Armenian: Մատենադարան), 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 history, philosophy, 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.