What Kind of Poetry Would a Syriac Manuscript-Thief Read about Oneself?

Abstract

In the modern period, numerous notes appeared within the colophons, aiming to protect a manuscript from potential thieves by addressing various curses to them. Some of those curses obtained a verse form, mainly forming quatrains, the most popular genre form, suitable for various kinds of notes. The paper discusses a such pieces – never studied of published so far – that were composed and written by a scribe named Hōrmīz, son of ‘Abd al-Aḥad, who worked in the early 18th century in Kirkuk (Syriac Bēt Slōk),