Evangelists holding the prototype of the ballpoint pen in an Armenian Cilician twelfth-century manuscript 

One of the Armenian manuscripts of the Matenadaran (the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Yerevan, Armenia) displays an intriguing nuance that provides evidence to suggest the theory that Armenians were one of the first who invented ball engravings back in 1166 in Hromkla (Cilicia). In the Gospel book created in the scriptorium of Hromkla Monastery (MS 7347), the evangelists are depicted with a prototype of a  ballpoint pen or a tool strongly resembling the ball-point pen in their hands. From the mention of the so-called “Stefanos’s pen,” it becomes clear that he wrote 700 letters, about one page, by dipping the pen.