Altuigurische Texte der Kirche des Ostens aus Zentralasien

Peter Zieme

"The book is intended to present a full documentation of the Old Uigur texts of the Church of the East known from several places of Central Asia, mainly Bulayik and Kurutka in the Turfan oasis, as well as Xaraxoto. Our knowledge about the Christian communities in the Turfan oasis is very limited. Although there are some traces of an interrelationship between the Syriac, Iranian and Old Uigur text fragments, hardly anything can be stated in precise terms, the main reason being that we have no exact dates. The only possible period in which speakers of all these groups could communicate with each other is the tenth century, when Sogdian was still a spoken language. Most of the Old Uigur texts probably belong to the 13th or 14th centuries, while the Syriac texts necessary for the liturgy may have been used by both other groups. The themes of the texts are very diverse. Starting with...