The Historical and Ethnographic Museum of Mestia houses a unique Georgian manuscript, the Yeli Iadgari (Tropologion of Yeli). This 10th-century hymnographic collection, written on parchment, features unpitched musical notation. The notational signs appear on folios 5v - 22v of the manuscript, including hymns for the Heirmoi and Theotokia.
Despite its significance, the manuscript and the neumatic notation system it contains have yet to be studied scientifically by a musicologist. The Yeli Tropologion belongs to the group of Great Yadgaris, which also includes Mikael Modrekili’s Yadgari, a well-known source for studying Georgian medieval neumatic notation.
This paper presents the initial results of a comparative study of the musical notation systems found in two different manuscripts from the same period. The introduction of this new source into scholarly circulation opens exciting prospects for the study of ancient musical notation. The research is supported by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia, under the leadership of Prof. Tamar Chkheidze, as part of the Fundamental Research Grants program (No. FR-22-7504) titled "Holy Week Chants in Georgian Church Tradition." The study was presented in Granada, at the Annual International Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference (MEDREN-2024).