The Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, comprising over 3,000 documents, is held by the University of Birmingham's Cadbury Research Library.
[1] In 1924 Alphonse Mingana, an ethnic Assyrian, made the first of three trips to the Middle East to collect ancient Syriac and Arabic manuscripts.
The expedition was sponsored by John Rylands Library and Dr Edward Cadbury, the Quaker owner of the famous chocolate factory at Bournville, Birmingham, who Mingana had met through Rendel Harris.
Mingana added to the collection with manuscripts acquired on two further trips to the Middle East in 1925 and 1929, both financed solely by Edward Cadbury.
A major exhibition of manuscripts from the collection entitled Illuminating Faith was held at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2005.