The twelve contributions to this volume of papers, from a conference of German-speaking Syriacists in 2009, cover a wide range of both time and topics. Several are of potential interest to readers of this Journal: three of these concern aspects of the late Sasanian period: J. Tubach on the extent of the metropolitan diocese of Persis, situated strategically at the north of the Gulf on the peninsular of Bushehr; M. Binder on the martyr Christina; and I. Toral-Niehoff on the legend surrounding the baptism of the Lahmid king Nu‘man. Moving into the Arab period P. Bruns discusses the distinctive colours of clothing required of Christians under Islamic rule, while M. Deeg provides an authoritative discussion of the Chinese context of the famous Xian stele of 781 and another, recently found one, in Luoyang; Deeg offers a salutary warning against the claims of some recent popular books on the subject. The last contribution, by M. Tamcke, concerns migrants from the Church of the East to Europe and America in the early twentieth century. Topics covered in other chapters are Ephem on the singing ministry of women (Mor Polycarpos Aydin; in English), Timothy Ailouros on Eutyches (C. Lange); Thomas of Edessa on baptism (U. Possekel); the Christology of East Syriac liturgical texts (Th. Hainthaler); the Byzantine and Syriac Oktoechos (U.-R. Nieten); and neologisms in ‘Abdisho‘’ popular ‘Paradise of Eden’ (H. Younansardaroud).