In Ethiopia and Eritrea manuscripts, often lavishly illustrated, have been for centuries the principal means of transmitting the Scriptures and recording historical information. Ethiopic manuscripts thus provide us with insights into the life and culture of the society in which they were produced. The Bodleian Library has one of the oldest and most significant collection of Ethiopic manuscripts in the world, but a large and very significant portion of this collection – 55 manuscripts bequeathed by the Oxford Medical Officer Juel-Jensen in 2006 – remain uncatalogued. A partnership between the Bodleian Library, the Faculty of Theology and Religion, the Faculty of Classics, and the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (HLCES) at Hamburg University will now lead to the publication of a catalogue of this important collection of manuscripts. The cataloguing – which will focus on the textual, codicological, and visual features of the manuscripts – will be carried out by Dorothea Reule (Universität Hamburg) and Jacopo Gnisci (Faculty of Classics). The preliminary results of the research activities will be disseminated at a conference on April 27, 2020.
People:
Alessandro Bausi
Phil Booth
Jacopo Gnisci
César Merchán-Hamann
Dorothea Reule
