Following to the Georgian Manuscripts: The Georgian Fragments Fund of the Matenadaran

The Georgian collection of the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, the Matenadaran, brought to the attention of the scholarly communities long time ago.. The collection is diverse and includes manuscripts, cover folia, fragments and bilingual documents.
The Georgian fragment fund of the Matenadaran comprises 56 fragments in total, ranging from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries. All three types of the Georgian script, the Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri and Mkhedruli are used in these manuscripts. The fund also represents all genres of old Georgian ecclesiastical writings – bibliology, liturgical writing, hymnography, ascetic writing and hagiography.
The importance of the Georgian fragments is especially highlighted by the fact that in the collection there are recently-revealed five palimpsests. Four of these manuscripts, Mss No 4, 9, 13 (lower layer in Nuskhuri) and 37 (lower layer in Asomtravruli) are Georgian, and only one (No 11) is Georgian-Armenian, which is yet another interesting example of the meeting of these two cultures.
The early 12th c folia of Great Synaxary is the subject of the particular interest for scolars, which have preserved important colophons regarding the history of south Georgia.
The fragment fund has also preserved fragments of the oldest Jerusalemite lectionary and of the pre-Athonite Georgian Four Gospels, also a single folio of a lost Mravaltavi collection.
We may consider as a unique sample of the collection the fragments which contain an unknown Georgian translation of the Life of Pope Sylvester by Eusebios Pamphilii and a different translation of the Ladder of Divine Ascent of John Sinaites.