Catalogue of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project

By Getatchew Haile, Kesis Melaku Terefe, Roger M. Rundell, Daniel Alemu, Veronika Six, Steve Delamarter, Jeremy R. Brown and Eric C. Young (editors)

Selected volumes of the catalogue of Ethiopic manuscripts digitised by the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project, with full descriptions of contents and illuminations.

ISBN: 9780227173503

Description

The series Ethiopic Manuscripts, Texts, and Studies offers, in the first place, catalogues of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project, whose purpose it is to digitize and catalogue collections of Ethiopic manuscripts in North America and around the world. Beyond this, though, the series offers a venue for monographs, revised dissertations, and texts that explore the rich historical, literary, and artistic traditions of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
From the Series Foreword

Volume 1 provides a full catalogue of the digital collection of images produced from the first two hundred and thirty nine Ethiopic manuscripts digitised by the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP). These include 105 codices and 134 scrolls of Ethiopian spiritual healing.

Volume 2 provides a full catalogue for EMIP codex numbers 106 through 200, and magic scrolls 135 through 284. The codices include gospels and other scriptural texts, liturgies, missals, psalters, hymns and commentaries.

Volume 7 provides a full catalogue for the collection of fifty-four manuscripts in the Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab collection at Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These include one late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century manuscript of Jubilees and the Minor Prophets. Extensive opening articles provide an introduction to the collection, a biography of Aläqa Meseret’s life and work, an introduction to the Ethiopian musical tradition of Saint Yared, and a study on the textual character of the manuscript of Jubilees.

Each catalogue entry is laid out in seven sections:

  1. Number, name and title
  2. Physical description and date (including descriptions of cases and covers)
  3. List of contents (with incipits)
  4. List of miniatures and illuminations
  5. Varia (known works added later)
  6. Notes on codicology and scribal practice
  7. Quire maps

The scrolls of spiritual healing contain prayers against diseases and natural disasters, such as epidemics and drought, and against the evil spirits that are believed to cause them. Many of the scrolls concern conditions suffered by women, such as menstruation, miscarriage and infertility. Each catalogue entry contains five elements:

  1. Number, name and title
  2. Physical description and date (including descriptions of cases and covers)
  3. List of contents
  4. List of miniatures and illuminations
  5. Name of the owner

The manuscripts catalogued here constitute a resource for a wide range of studies, such as the exploration of developments of scribal and artistic practice across time, or the interconnections between common elements in manuscripts, scribal practices, scribal education, and community ideology. A particular focus of interest of the Project is on the scribal techniques and practices in evidence within the manuscripts, and this has been emphasised in the catalogue descriptions. Extensive opening articles provide an introduction to the collection and its codicology, and an introduction to this set of Ethiopian scrolls of spiritual healing. Extensive indices have been provided to enable quick access for researchers.

Additional information

Dimensions 242 × 165 mm
Pages 490 (Volume 1), 530 (Volume 2), 322 (Volume 7)
Format

Volume

Volume 1  |  Volume 2  |  Volume 7

Trade Information JPOD

About the Author

Getatchew Haile (editor, Volume 1, Volume 2) is a MacArthur Fellow and has studied theology at the Coptic Theological College in Cairo, Egypt; social sciences at the American University in Cairo, Egypt; and Semitic philology at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. He has also taught for over ten years at the Haile Sellassie I (now Addis Ababa) University, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) before he moved to the United States in 1976. Haile is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and has served St. Johns University (Collegeville, Minnesota) as Curator of the Ethiopian Study Center, as Regents Professor of Medieval Studies, and as Cataloguer of Oriental Manuscripts, Emeritus.

Kesis Melaku Terefe (editor, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 7) served the church in Ethiopia for several years in various positions in Awasa (southern Ethiopia) and Harar (eastern Ethiopia). For the last nine years he has served as priest in the Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Los Angeles, California. He is in frequent demand, speaking in various churches through North America. He served as cataloguer of the Wolf Leslau collection of Ethiopian manuscripts at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA, and for the Robert Garrett Collection of Ethiopic manuscripts at the Princeton University Library.

Roger M. Rundell (editor, Volume 1) currently resides in Longview, Washington.

Ato Daniel Alemu (editor, Volume 1) currently resides in Addis Ababa.

Veronika Six (editor, Volume 2) is a scholar of Ethiopian and African studies, ethnology, and educational science. She received her PhD from Hamburg University, editing an Ethiopic hagiographic text (published as VOHD 18). Since 1974 she has served as cataloguer of Ethiopic manuscripts in German and Swiss collections. Six is employed in the German project, Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in German Collections (KOHD) where she works on the Ethiopian and Coptic Christian-Arabic manuscripts of the State and University Library at Hamburg. Working with diverse Ethiopic texts as source materials, she has published several articles on history, religion, codicology, and art.

Steve Delamarter (editor, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 7) is Professor of Old Testament at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Director of the EMIP, Chair of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Consultation on the Ethiopic Bible and Literature, and Project Co-Director with Ato Demeke Berhane in the British Library Endangered Archives Programme project (#286) to digitise and catalog 5,749 items in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Delamarter is also head of the steering committee for the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project. With Ato Demeke Berhane, he has written A Catalogue of Previously Uncatalogued Ethiopic Manuscripts in England: Twenty-three Manuscripts in the Bodleian, Cambridge University and John Rylands University Libraries and in a Private Collection (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Jeremy R. Brown (editor, Volume 2, Volume 7) works in the EMIP as director of digitisation and technology. In December of 2008 and January of 2009, he served on a digitsation team that worked in Ethiopia to digitise about 1,200 manuscripts. Between January and June 2010, he served as Director of Digitization and Conservation in the Endangered Archives Programme grant to digitise the collection at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Erik C. Young (editor, Volume 2) worked on the staff of the EMIP in manuscript digitisation and physical descriptions. In December of 2008 and January of 2009, he served on a digitization team that worked in Ethiopia to digitise about 1,200 manuscripts. Young has earned advanced degrees in theological studies at George Fox University and in Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Ontario.

Contents

Volume 1: Codices 1-105, Magic Scrolls 1-134

Series Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction to the Collection and Its Codicology
Introduction to the Scrolls of Ethiopian Spiritual Healing

Catalogue of the Codices
Catalogue of the Scrolls of Ethiopian Spiritual Healing

List of the Manuscripts by EMIP Number and Owner Number
List of Dated or Datable Manuscripts
List of Undated and Composite Manuscripts
Bibliography
Index of Works in the Codices
Index of Names and Places in the Codices
Index of Miniatures in the Codices
Index of Scribal Practices in the Codices
Index of Works in the Scrolls of Spiritual Healing
Index of Names in the Scrolls of Spiritual Healing

Volume 2: Codices 106-200, Magic Scrolls 135-284

Series Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations, Texts, and Translations
Introduction to the Codicology of the Collection
Introduction to the Scrolls of Ethiopian Spiritual Healing

Catalogue of the Codices
Catalogue of the Scrolls of Ethiopian Spiritual Healing

List of the Manuscripts by EMIP Number and Owner Number
List of Dated or Datable Codices
List of Undated Codices
List of Dates of Magic Scrolls
Bibliography
General Index of Subject and Modern Names
Index of Works in the Codices
Index of Names and Places in the Codices
Index of Miniatures in the Codices
Index of Scribal Practices in the Codices
Index of Works and Themes in the Scrolls of Spiritual Healing
Index of Names in the Scrolls of Spiritual Healing

Volume 7: Codices 601-654. The Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab Collection of Mekane Yesus Seminary, Addis Ababa

Series Foreword
Abbreviations
Foreword: Ethiopian Manuscripts and Their Preservation / Richard Pankhurst
Preface
Introduction to the Collection
Aläqa Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab: A Biography / Loren Bliese, Mehret-Ab Bereke and Walda Estifanos
The Dǝggwa of St Yared and the Musical Manuscripts in the Collection / Ralph Lee
The Textual Character of Jubilees in Mekane Yesus Seminary 54 / Ted M. Erho

Catalogue of the Manuscripts

List of the Manuscripts by MYS shelf mark
List of Dated or Datable Manuscripts by Date
List of Undated Manuscripts by Date
Bibliography
Index of Works in the Codices
Index of Names and Places
Index of Miniatures
Index of Scribal Practices

Extracts

Volume 1: Codices 1-105, Magic Scrolls 1-134

For colour plates of the codices described in the Extract, please see the extracts for the companion volume, Ethiopian Scribal Practice 1.

Volume 2: Codices 106-200, Magic Scrolls 135-284

Volume 7: Codices 601-654. The Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab Collection of Mekane Yesus Seminary, Addis Ababa

Endorsements and Reviews

Volume 1: Codices 1-105, Magic Scrolls 1-134

… the catalogue and the companion volume mark an important step towards the establishing of a better standard of Ethiopic codicology, where quantitative evaluation comes to play a more central role …
Alessandro Bausi, in Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, 13 (2010)

Volume 2: Codices 106-200, Magic Scrolls 135-284

The catalogue is furnished with a set of useful indices: general subject and modern names, works in the codices, names and places in the scrolls, miniatures, and finally – and again this is an important innovation – scribal practises. It should be stressed here that the amount of information on the physical features of manuscripts including issues such as binding techniques, covers, and arrangement of quires is very impressive, and even attempts are made to provide some statistical generalizations (pp. xxxv-xxxvii) concerning the quire structure. Since our knowledge of Ethiopian bookmaking still leaves a lot to be desired this is a very recommended approach.
Marcin Krawczuk, in The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, Vol XLIV, 2014

Volume 7: Codices 601-654. The Meseret Sebhat Le-Ab Collection of Mekane Yesus Seminary, Addis Ababa

Apart from Biblical and liturgical texts one finds there [in the book] theological treatises (such as the famous Qerellos), synaxaria and some hagiographies as well as a certain number of manuscripts with tradtional Ethiopian musical notation. The gem of the collection is however the fifteenth/sixteenth-century codex containing, among others, the Book of Jubilees.
Marcin Krawczuk, in The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, Vol XLIV, 2014