Mayte Penelas (María Teresa Penelas Meléndez) is a historian and philologist. She specialises in
codicology
Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...
,
history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
and
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...
in
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
. She is Director of the Escuela de Estudios Árabes at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council; CSIC) at
Granada
Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...
,
Andalucía
Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...
.
Education
Penelas was awarded a PhD in Philology in 1998 from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her thesis was entitled '' Kitab Hurusiyus: traducción árabe de las "Historiae adversus paganos" de Orosio'' (''The Arabic Translation of the Histories of Orosius, Editing and Study'')''.''It was published in 2001 as a monograph. The ''Kitāb Hurūshiyūsh'' (
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
: كتاب هروشيوش) is the name conventionally given to a medieval
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
translation of
Orosius
Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in '' Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), ...
's early fifth-century ''Historiae adversus paganos.''
Research and career
Penelas's research focuses on Arabic historiography, Andalusian Christian texts, and Arabic manuscripts from the ninth to the twelfth centuries CE. Penelas studied Arabic philology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, before moving to Granada and then London for a postdoctoral fellowship. She returned to the School of Arabic Studies at Granada, and has been Director of the Escuela de Estudios Árabes at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas since 2017.
Bibliography
*
Maribel Fierro
María Isabel Fierro Bello (born 1956) is a researcher on Middle Eastern studies at the Spanish National Research Council's humanities branch in Madrid, Spain.Cyrille Aillet, Mayte Penelas and Philippe Roisse (eds), ''¿Existe una identidad mozárabe? Historia, lengua y cultura de los cristianos de al-Andalus (siglos ix-xii)'', (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2008) Collection de la Casa de Velázquez 101
* Mayte Penelas, ''La conquista de al-Andalus'', traducción Mayte Penelas, Madrid, CSIC, 2002. Col. “Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas” 28.
* Mayte Penelas, ''Kitāb Hurūšiyūš'' ''(Traducción árabe de las'' Historiae adversus paganos ''de Orosio)'', edición y estudio, Madrid, CSIC, 2001. Col. “Fuentes Arábico-Hispanas” 26.
* Mayte Penelas, 'A Possible Author of the Arabic Translation of Orosius’ ''Historiae''', ''Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean'', 13, 2001, 113-135