The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice

In 2010, the J. Paul Getty Museum faced a legal claim from the Armenian Church seeking the return of eight pages from the Zeytun Gospels, a medieval manuscript illuminated by Toros Roslin. The manuscript had been protected in a remote church for centuries before being displaced during the Armenian genocide. Separated during the First World War, the manuscript was split in two—most pages eventually reached the Republic of Armenia, while eight pages came to the Getty. The Missing Pages traces the biography of this manuscript across seven centuries, from medieval Armenia through the 1915 killing fields in Anatolia, refugee camps in Aleppo, Ellis Island, and Soviet Armenia, culminating in a Los Angeles courtroom. Watenpaugh reconstructs the path of the pages while exploring the artwork itself and the people connected to it. The book examines how the manuscript's journey mirrors the Armenian community's experience of genocide, displacement, and efforts to rebuild identity in the absence of a homeland. The work presents the manuscript as simultaneously art, sacred object, and cultural heritage, documenting both the human costs of war and questions about cultural restitution.