Ethiopian Manuscripts
Most Ethiopian manuscripts are religious texts from the Christian faith. All the examples shown here are Christian, but there exist in Ethiopia many additional manuscripts that are Islamic. These manuscripts were written on parchment (made from processed animal hides, usually goat or cattle) and decorated with ink drawings and ornamental designs.
Some manuscripts were written on strips of parchment and then tied into scrolls. The text on scrolls contains general prayers and charms to seek aid for specific ailments and problems (such as protection from evil spirits). There are usually two pictures drawn on each scroll. The first is often an angel carrying a sword, and the second is usually an eight-pointed sun symbol. Note that some scrolls are written in a single column while others have two columns.
Books were also made. Some were personal but others belonged to churches or monasteries. Carrying cases or containers were made for many books. The books on display here are of the first kind, and they contained common and similar texts made up of prayers, poetry, devotional readings, the gospels, etc. Some Ethiopian manuscripts, however, are particularly interesting to scholars because they contain copies of ancient texts preserved in Ethiopia but which have been lost, or were at one time destroyed, in the Western world. Unlike the prayer scrolls, only some books have illustrations in them although others are superbly decorated with finely tooled leather bindings and fabric inserts. Rarely book bindings were plated in gold or decorated with gold thread. Occasionally a small number of ornamental designs are found on the pages. Most books are simply bound with plain wooden boards.
The fabrics found in the bindings were usually imported and can be recognized for place of origin and date of manufacture. Not only does this help date some manuscripts but it demonstrates long distance trade connections to such as India, China, and the Ottoman Empire.
The colors of Ethiopian manuscripts are limited. Usually we find only black and red inks used in these manuscripts. Some of the more elaborate works may include a few other colors such as yellow and blue. Some modern red inks have a violet hue. The jet black ink is like that known in the West as India ink but is locally made by the Ethiopians. In Christian manuscripts, black ink was for the main body of the text while the names of God, members of the Holy Family, Saints, and similar personages were usually written in red.
Parchment manuscripts did not survive as well in the Ethiopian climate as they could in medieval and modern Europe. One reason is that the dryness of the climate causes the parchment to become brittle and even to disintegrate. Manuscripts kept in churches lasted longer, but personal and service books and scrolls that were handled frequently had to be replaced with a new copy from time to time.
The oldest known manuscripts from Ethiopia are of 10th century date. The oldest Ethiopian manuscript owned by HMML dates back to the 17th century. It has clearly escaped potentially serious damage from a fire and smells strongly of smoke. The other manuscripts date mostly to the 19th and 20th centuries. Most of the time, manuscripts can only be dated by the style of the script. It was not common to put dates on them.
Christian manuscripts are written in an ancient form of the Ethiopic language which is still used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. This language is related to modern Amharic and is called Ge’ez.
According to Richard Pankhurst, a author of numerous essays and books on Ethiopian history and culture,
Christian manuscripts cover a wide range of literature, including not only Bibles, religious service books, homilies, Biblical commentaries, and works on theology, but also writings on ecclesiastical and civil law, lives of saints, local as well as foreign, history, chronography and medicine. Harari manuscripts [Islamic manuscripts in Ethiopia] likewise contain, in addition of the Quran [the main Islamic religious text], a wealth of other material, both religious and secular. The latter includes legal, historic, and other material. Many Ethiopian manuscripts, particularly those of the Christian tradition, are furthermore important in that their beginning or end pages were used to record details of marriages and marriage settlements, land deeds and sales, inventories of property, and other such interesting information.
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