Bible of Tewodros II. First page showing mirror inside front cover with an illustration of Saint George. Written on vellum, tooled leather binding, 8 volumes. Wellcome Library, London, number 62892.
Ethiopian manuscript collections are found in many parts of the world, the monasteries and modern institutions in Ethiopia maintaining extensive collections with some monasteries still centres of manuscript production.
Parchment (berānnā) was used for Ethiopian manuscripts from the time of the Four Gospel books of Abbā Garimā, generally known as the Garima Gospels, preserved in the Abba Garima Monastery. These gospels are thought to be the oldest surviving Christian illuminated manuscripts, with their dating established by C-14 analysis.[1] Apart from Islamic manuscripts, paper only came into general use in the twentieth century.[2]
There are 88 languages in Ethiopia according to Ethnologue,[3] but not all support manuscript cultures. The majority of manuscripts are in Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia.
Catalogues and Online Resouces. Catalogues of individual collections were written in the nineteenth century, with a key work for the disposition of Ethiopian MSS more widely prepared in 1995 and published by Robert Beylot and Maxime Rodinson.[4] Since that time, there have been several disparate initiatives, for example, Inventory of Libraries and Catalogues of Ethiopian Manuscripts, hosted by MÉNESTREL.[5] More stable and ambitious is Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea (Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung), a project hosted by the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies at the Universität Hamburg.[6]
The list of institutions below is a partial selection of the most prominent and best known collections, giving special attention to the individual researchers involved in forming the collections and those scholars who wrote the catalogues.
^Bausi, Alessandro, and Eugenia Sokolinski, Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction ([Hamburg]: COMSt, 2015): 154.
^Bausi, Alessandro, and Eugenia Sokolinski, Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction ([Hamburg]: COMSt, 2015): 155.
^Ethnologue page on Ethiopian languages
^Robert Beylot and Maxime Rodinson, Répertoire des Bibliothéques et des Catalogues de Manuscrits Éthiopiens (DNRS Editions; Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Éditions, 1995)
^Inventory of Libraries and Catalogues of Ethiopian Manuscripts, hosted by MÉNESTREL : Médiévistes sur le net : sources, travaux et références en ligne. See http://www.menestrel.fr/?-Inventaire-des-bibliotheques-et-des-catalogues-des-manuscrits-ethiopiens-&lang=enRetrieved Retrieved January 2024.
^Beta maṣāḥǝft. Retrieved January 2024.
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