Dionysius of Tell-Mahre

Dionysius of Tell-Mahre was the Patriarch of Antioch and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 818 until his death in 845 CE (wikipedia). He wrote Annals in Syriac in the first half of the 9th century CE. Annals is a two volume history which covers events from 582 - 843 CE. The first volume is devoted to church history - the second to secular history. Each volume is subdivided into 8 books each. Only a few fragments of his original work survives however he is a source in other author's chronicles such as Michael the Syrian and Chronicon Ad Annum 1234. Michael the Syrian explicitly cites Dionysius of Tell-Mahre as a source and Brock(1976) suggests that "the lost chronicle of Dionysius of Tellmahre appears to be one of the main sources" for Chronicon Ad Annum 1234 during "this period". Both Michael the Syrian and Chronicon Ad Annum 1234 provide an extensive list of seismic effects primarily from the Talking Mule Quake although, in the case of Michael the Syrian, other unrelated earthquakes are amalgamated in. In his preface, Dionysius of Tell-Mahre states that he used Theophilus of Edessa as a source ( Hoyland, 1997:416-419). Theophilus was a contemporary source who, later in his life was court astrologer for Al-Mahdi, the 3rd Abassid Caliph. Al-Mahdi was 4 or 5 years old when the earthquakes struck - living close to the southern part of the Arava in Humeina. Theophilus would have known a great deal about these earthquakes. As such, Theophilus by way of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre appears to have provided us with a wealth of seismic information - albeit filtered through textual transmission into the accounts of Michael the Syrian, Chronicon Ad Annum 1234, and possibly others. Theophilus' Chronicle, like that of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre is lost however Hoyland (2011) attempted to reconstruct it from dependent sources and that reconstruction is shown in this catalog. Further details on Dionysius of Tell-Mahre can be found in a book by Abramowski (1940).