30 of each. The prayer roll in the Millar Library includes text from the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John all referencing miracles of Galilee, traditional prayers of the Armenian Church dedicated to St. Gregory the Illuminator and St. Nerses, illustrations of the Crucifixion, Virgin Mary with the Christ child and the Lamb of God.4 Notes provided by the antiquities dealer estimate the date of the roll at the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century based on the depiction of the Tomb of Christ, also known as the Holy Sepulcher, in one of the roll’s illustrations. The last panel on the roll is missing a section, which would provide the colophon containing the name of the scribe, exact date and place of composition. The creation of a prayer roll by a scribe and artist was in decline by the mid-nineteenth century with the majority of these works produced on printing presses at that time. The practice, as a whole, died out over a century ago.5 Darcie Hart Riedner 1 Hamlet Petrosyan, “Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity.” (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 58. 2 Edda Vardanyan, Arme’nie, la magie de l’e’crit, ed. Claude Mutafian,( Marseille: Musées de Marseille, 2007), 123-125 3 Dawn Stevick, “Notes.” --(University Studies Capstone Course: Medieval Portland. 11 Aug. 2011). 4 Father Garabed Kochakian, email correspondence with author, 3 Nov. 2011. 5 Dr. James Russell, Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, email correspondence with author, 16 Nov. 2011
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