Here you can explore some general information about the project. See also Beta maṣāḥəft institutional web page. Select About to meet the project team and our partners. Visit the Guidelines section to learn about our encoding principles. The section Data contains the Linked Open Data information, and API the Application Programming Interface documentation for those who want to exchange data with the Beta maṣāḥǝft project. The Permalinks section documents the versioning and referencing earlier versions of each record.
Click to get back to the home page. Here you can find out more about the project team, the cooperating projects, and the contact information. You can also visit our institutional page. Find out more about our Encoding Guidelines. In this section our Linked Open Data principles are explained. Developers can find our Application Programming Interface documentation here. The page documents the use of permalinks by the project.
Descriptions of (predominantly) Christian manuscripts from Ethiopia and Eritrea are the core of the Beta maṣāḥǝft project. We (1) gradually encode descriptions from printed catalogues, beginning from the historical ones, (2) incorporate digital descriptions produced by other projects, adjusting them wherever possible, and (3) produce descriptions of previously unknown and/or uncatalogued manuscripts. The encoding follows the TEI XML standards (check our guidelines).
We identify each unit of content in every manuscript. We consider any text with an independent circulation a work, with its own identification number within the Clavis Aethiopica (CAe). Parts of texts (e.g. chapters) without independent circulation (univocally identifiable by IDs assigned within the records) or recurrent motifs as well as documentary additional texts (identified as Narrative Units) are not part of the CAe. You can also check the list of different types of text titles or various Indexes available from the top menu.
The clavis is a repertory of all known works relevant for the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition; the work being defined as any text with an independent circulation. Each work (as well as known recensions where applicable) receives a unique identifier in the Clavis Aethiopica (CAe). In the filter search offered here one can search for a work by its title, a keyword, a short quotation, but also directly by its CAe identifier - or, wherever known and provided, identifier used by other claves, including Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG), Clavis Patrum Graecorum (CPG), Clavis Coptica (CC), Clavis Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti (CAVT), Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (CANT), etc. The project additionally identifies Narrative Units to refer to text types, where no clavis identification is possible or necessary. Recurring motifs or also frequently documentary additiones are assigned a Narrative Unit ID, or thematically clearly demarkated passages from various recensions of a larger work. This list view shows the documentary collections encoded by the project Ethiopian Manuscript Archives (EMA) and its successor EthioChrisProcess - Christianization and religious interactions in Ethiopia (6th-13th century) : comparative approaches with Nubia and Egypt, which aim to edit the corpus of administrative acts of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, for medieval and modern periods. See also the list of documents contained in the additiones in the manuscripts described by the Beta maṣāḥǝft project . Works of interest to Ethiopian and Eritrean studies.
While encoding manuscripts, the project Beta maṣāḥǝft aims at creating an exhaustive repertory of art themes and techniques present in Ethiopian and Eritrean Christian tradition. See our encoding guidelines for details. Two types of searches for aspects of manuscript decoration are possible, the decorations filtered search and the general keyword search.
The filtered search for decorations, originally designed with Jacopo Gnisci, looks at decorations and their features only. The filters on the left are relative only to the selected features, reading the legends will help you to figure out what you can filter. For example you can search for all encoded decorations of a specific art theme, or search the encoded legends. If the decorations are present, but not encoded, you will not get them in the results. If an image is available, you will also find a thumbnail linking to the image viewer. [NB: The Index of Decorations currently often times out, we are sorry for the inconvenience.] You can search for particular motifs or aspects, including style, also through the keyword search. Just click on "Art keywords" and "Art themes" on the left to browse through the options. This is a short cut to a search for all those manuscripts which have miniatures of which we have images.
We create metadata for all places associated with the manuscript production and circulation as well as those mentioned in the texts used by the project. The encoding of places in Beta maṣāḥǝft will thus result in a Gazetteer of the Ethiopian tradition. We follow the principles established by Pleiades and lined out in the Syriaca.org TEI Manual and Schema for Historical Geography which allow us to distinguish between places, locations, and names of places. See also Help page fore more guidance.
This tab offers a filtrable list of all available places. Geographical references of the type "land inhabited by people XXX" is encoded with the reference to the corresponding Ethnic unit (see below); ethnonyms, even those used in geographical contexts, do not appear in this list. Repositories are those locations where manuscripts encoded by the project are or used to be preserved. While they are encoded in the same way as all places are, the view offered is different, showing a list of manuscripts associated with the repository.
We create metadata for all persons (and groups of persons) associated with the manuscript production and circulation (rulers, religious authorities, scribes, donors, and commissioners) as well as those mentioned in the texts used by the project. The result will be a comprehensive Prosopography of the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition. See also Help page for more guidance.
We encode persons according to our Encoding Guidelines. The initial list was inherited from the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, and there are still many inconsistencies that we are trying to gradually fix. We consider ethnonyms as a subcategory of personal names, even when many are often used in literary works in the context of the "land inhabited by **". The present list of records has been mostly inherited from the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, and there are still many inconsistencies that we are trying to gradually fix.
This section collects some additional resources offered by the project. Select Bibliography to explore the references cited in the project records. The Indexes list different types of project records (persons, places, titles, keywords, etc). Visit Projects for information on partners that have input data directly in the Beta maṣāḥǝft database. Special ways of exploring the data are offered under Visualizations. Two applications were developed in cooperation with the project TraCES, the Gǝʿǝz Morphological Parser and the Online Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae.
Help

You are looking at work in progress version of this website. For questions contact the dev team.

Hover on words to see search options.

Double-click to see morphological parsing.

Click on left pointing hands and arrows to load related items and click once more to view the result in a popup.

You can run a simple search which will look in all text indexes. This is the simplest search that we can offer. Check the options below the input box if you want to change the default settings.

Note that you can click on and/or symbols under the search field for additional filters/facets and on to activate the virtual keyboard.

When the results appear you can use facets to narrow your selection. For that, first select the facet (Item type, Author of changes, Keywords, etc.) and then press "refine search results ".
Here you can get a list of items given some parameters, like the entity type, without searching for a string. You can play with the filters to restrict the search and you can certainly combine these with a text search. If you know the identifier (ID) of an item (LIT1234name, MS123abc, PRS12345name, etc.) you can paste it here, and you will get it in the results. if you know only a part, eg. LIT20... it will give you all those which match. To reach a given item with its ID, you can also append that to the base URL of the website, https://betamasaheft.eu/LIT1234name and you will be redirected to the correct landing page. If you have at hand the Clavis Aethiopica number of a Textual Unit, e.g. CAe 1234, you can enter it here and the search will point you to that record. We record (unsystematically) corresponding identifiers from other Claves, like CAVT or CANT, here you can select which one you want to look for and search for records pointing to that. We record for each repository information on settlement, region and country. By searching for the identifier of a place the query will look at related places and check for other repositories which may be associated. If you know how to write your XPath, and know the source TEI (available for each file, by appending .xml to the identifier of the record) you will be able to run that query against the db here. Not all possible paths are optimized. Parallel to the XML, also an RDF triple store is maintained by the project. Here you get an interface to the SPARQL endpoint. You can add your SPARQL query and see the results available.
In the search mask above, you can search for text, below there are options and you can add filters ( ). You can then use facets to narrow your selection.
But text is not all you can search for. In the top menu you can switch to other types of queries and searches which rely on different indexes and data formats.
You can check this box to use 'smart' ranking, where a higher score is assigned to hits in placeName, persName, title or to records with text or an occupation element. This will make you wait a bit more. If running a text search, you can select the type of text search. This determines how the single words which you enter are matched in the indexes here By default the search will use OR as an operator, which means that if you search two words you will get hits which contain one OR the other. You may wish to use AND to get the matches which contain your first word AND your second word. If you want them in that particular order, consider using phrase mode from the search type. Click on this plus button to see a series of additional options for your search. If you wish to search for a given word in the hands descriptions and another word in the decorations, here you can do that, using fields. This may help you enter characters which are not immediately present on your keyboard. Keep a letter pressed for additional forms. Use Shift and Alt for alternative keyboards. Instead of the pointer you can use your own keyboard with these values when active. Homophones are mechanically replaced for you, so that for example, if you search for one of 'ሀ', 'ሐ', 'ኀ', 'ሃ', 'ሓ', 'ኃ' we will search for all of them. If you deselect this checkbox the list of homophones will not be considered and only the exact string you searched will be passed on. Homophones are not replaced for search strings longer than 10 characters and is not applied in all modes. If you entered a search string for a Gǝʿǝz string, either typing it in Fidal or in a transliteration format, we can try to convert it and search also the other form. If you entered ወልደ the search engine will look also for walda. If you entered walda also for ወልደ. This depends on the availability of the alternate form.

You can enter above your SPARQL query to the RDF representation of the data stored in Apache Jena Fuseki. Please use single quotes ' not double.

PREFIXes are already there (see below), so you can start with SELECT. If you prefer to use your prefixes, do so, no problem. A super tutorial on how to build SPARQL queries is here at Apache Jena.

Results do not have facets and are presented as they are requested in the query from the SPARQL response.



PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
PREFIX lawd: <http://lawd.info/ontology/>
PREFIX oa: <http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#>
PREFIX ecrm: <http://erlangen-crm.org/current/>
PREFIX crm: <http://www.cidoc-crm.org/cidoc-crm/>
PREFIX gn: <http://www.geonames.org/ontology#>
PREFIX agrelon: <http://d-nb.info/standards/elementset/agrelon.owl#>
PREFIX rel: <http://purl.org/vocab/relationship/>
PREFIX dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>
PREFIX bm: <https://betamasaheft.eu/>
PREFIX pelagios: <http://pelagios.github.io/vocab/terms#>
PREFIX syriaca: <http://syriaca.org/documentation/relations.html#>
PREFIX saws: <http://purl.org/saws/ontology#>
PREFIX snap: <http://data.snapdrgn.net/ontology/snap#>
PREFIX pleiades: <https://pleiades.stoa.org/>
PREFIX wd: <https://www.wikidata.org/>
PREFIX dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>
PREFIX skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>
PREFIX t: <http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0>
PREFIX sdc: <https://w3id.org/sdc/ontology#>
PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>

You can also use the API to query the SPARQL endpoint, using https://betamasaheft.eu/api/SPARQL with the query in a parameter q. The results are SPARQL Query Results XML Format, as the one visualized below.

In the Beta maṣāḥǝft Guidelines you can find the OWLDoc Documentation and a visualization thanks to webVOWL of the current ontology developed with Protégé.

Some examples of the data you are querying

Documentation on Linked Open Data can be found here.

Examples:
Search for female donors: "SELECT ?ms ?person WHERE { ?annotation a bm:donor ; oa:hasBody ?person ; oa:hasTarget ?ms . ?ms a bm:mss . ?person foaf:gender 'female' . } "
Manuscripts with a patron of the imperial family: "SELECT DISTINCT ?manuscript ?patron ?relation ?ruler WHERE{ ?annotation a bm:patron ; oa:hasTarget ?manuscript ; oa:hasBody ?patron . ?manuscript a bm:mss . ?patron snap:hasBond ?bondName . ?bondName rdf:type ?relation ; snap:bond-with ?ruler . ?ruler snap:occupation 'Emperor' . }"
Mountains mentioned in Liturgy manuscripts: "SELECT DISTINCT ?mountain ?manuscript WHERE { ?att oa:hasBody ?mountain ; oa:hasTarget ?manuscript . ?manuscript a bm:mss ; a bm:Liturgy . ?mountain a bm:place ; pleiades:hasFeatureType in <https://betamasaheft.eu/authority-files/mountain> . } LIMIT 50"

The results presented here are visualized with d3sparql

Enter above your XPath 3.0 query to the data. (You can alternatively use the old XPath search page here) Please, use t: namespace for TEI elements. The starting point of any Xpath should be $config:collection-root if you are searching the entire dataset.

NB: if you are a member of the BM GitHub organization and work with Oxygen you may run your XPath Queries directly in your Oxygen project; in this case start the string directly with //TEI.

You can also use, as a cached and short form to point to collections the following variables: $config:collection-rootMS for manuscripts; $config:collection-rootW for Textual Units $config:collection-rootPl for places; $config:collection-rootPr for persons; $config:collection-rootIn for repositories; $config:collection-rootA for authority files.

Examples:
Persons marked up in colophons: $config:collection-rootMS//t:colophon[t:persName]
Manuscripts with at least 26 additions: $config:collection-rootMS//t:additions/t:list/t:item[@xml:id='a26']
Manuscripts with a text marked up as Amharic: $config:collection-rootMS//t:TEI[descendant::t:textLang[@mainLang='am' or @otherLangs='am']]
Manuscripts with additions that contain something tagged Amharic: $config:collection-rootMS//t:TEI[not(contains(@xml:id, 'IHA'))]//t:additions[descendant::t:*[@xml:lang='am']]
Records with the title with the subtype inscriptio: $config:collection-root//t:title[contains(@subtype,'inscriptio')]
Manuscripts that have at least 31 quires: $config:collection-rootMS//t:collation/t:list[count(t:item) ge 31]
Manuscripts where a roleName appears: $config:collection-rootMS//t:roleName
Additons of the type OwnershipNote: $config:collection-rootMS//t:additions/t:list/t:item[t:desc[@type='OwnershipNote']]
Place records revised in 2022: $config:collection-rootPl//t:revisionDesc/t:change[contains(concat(' ', @when, ' '), '2022')]
Work records that contain "Senodos" inside title: $config:collection-rootW//t:titleStmt/t:title[contains(.,'Senodos')]
Works that contain the string "Senodos" somewhere: $config:collection-rootW//*[contains(.,'Senodos')]
Person record which have at least some attribute for birth and death (can be when, notBefore, notAfter) elements and occupation type ruler: $config:collection-rootPr//t:person[t:birth[@*]][t:death[@*]][t:occupation[@type='ruler']]
Manuscripts with miniatures in them: $config:collection-rootMS//t:decoDesc[t:decoNote[@type='miniature']]
Manuscripts with an addition element typed Ownership Note followed by another one with type Supplication: $config:collection-rootMS//t:additions/t:list/t:item[t:desc[@type='OwnershipNote']][following-sibling::t:item[t:desc[@type='Supplication']]]

Here you can differentiate your search by looking at the text of constructed strings from specific portions of the data. You can search for records which have a word occurring in the decoration and another in the content description, for example.















Resource type
manuscript7
General
Denis Nosnitsin1
Dorothea Reule5
Eugenia Sokolinski3
Massimo Villa3
Pietro Maria Liuzzo1
Vitagrazia Pisani1
2022-02-071
2022-06-131
2022-07-211
2021-05-201
2021-06-231
2020-02-171
2020-05-061
2020-05-111
2020-11-261
2019-04-061
2019-04-111
2019-05-131
2019-06-041
2018-03-161
2018-07-041
2018-08-031
2018-08-091
2017-06-081
2017-09-151
2017-10-051
2016-05-101
2016-09-051
2016-10-241
2016-11-151
2015-06-051
2012-11-151
Holy Man Portrait1
Virgin and Child2
Gondarine1
Postaksumite II2
Apocrypha6
Christian Literature6
Chronography1
Hagiography2
Homily1
Liturgy1
Magic2
Miracle6
Poetry2
Prayers2
Theology1
Arabic1
English5
Gǝʿǝz 7
Italian 2
Latin 2
Spanish 1
Manuscripts
of Gabra Krǝstos1
The caption is only partly readable: the saint's name cannot be identified; only few letters of his name are readable. The ink colour looks red.1
Virgin and Child2
cardboard1
leather4
paper1
textile3
wood3
Additional1
Aethiopici2
Ethio-SPaRe1
Ethiopic1
Oriental2
26
complete7
incomplete5
deficient3
good4
Anaphora of Our Lord Jesus Christ1
Anaphora to Our Lady Mary by Giyorgis1
ʾArgānona wǝddāse1
Book of Odes1
Calendar1
Concordance of the Ethiopic and Latin names of the months1
Concordance of the names of the months and weekdays1
ʾƎsaggǝd laki ʾǝsaggǝd laki ʾǝsaggǝd laki wa-ʾǝweddǝsaki1
Eucharistic prayer to Our Lady Mary1
Eucharistic prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ1
Fragment of a liturgical prayer1
Gadla Gabra Krǝstos1
Homily on the Archangel Michael by Timothy of Alexandria1
Hymns to Virgin Mary1
Hymn to ʾEwosṭātewos1
Hymn to Our Lady Mary1
Introduction to the Miracles of Mary1
Invocations, hymns and prayers1
Invocation to the Holy Trinity1
Lamentations1
Māḫleta ṣǝge1
Malkǝʾ-hymn to ʾEwosṭātewos1
Malkǝʾ-hymn to Our Lady Mary2
Malkǝʾ-hymn to the archangel Michael1
Malkǝʾa fǝlsatā1
Maṣḥafa śǝrʿāt za-waṣʾa ʾǝm-manbara Mārqos ḥawāryā ʾǝm-makāna maʿāllǝqā1
Matthew 25, 25-461
Mǝnbāb za-fǝlsatā1
Miracles of Mary1
Miracles of Mary: ʾAkko-nu bəʾsi collection1
Mysteries revealed by Jesus Christ to John son of Zebedee before his Assumption1
Notes of various content1
ʾO-rǝḫrǝḫta ḫǝllinā1
On auspicious and inauspicious days1
On the annunciation to Our Lady Mary1
On the calculation of the maṭqǝʿ1
On the twelve hours of the night and the twelve hours of the day1
Praises to Our Lady Mary1
Praise to Our Lady Mary1
Prayer against the demons1
Prayer against the snakes1
Prayer concerning the Hebrew letters1
Prayer for the Christian people1
Prayer for the middle of the night1
Prayer on the holy names revealed by Jesus to the apostle Andrew1
Prayer to ʾEwosṭātewos 1
Prayer to Jesus Christ1
Prayer to Our Lady Mary1
Protective prayer1
Ṣalota hāymānot za-ʾAfrāqǝyā1
Sǝnkǝssār Commemoration of Mary for the 16th Yakkātit1
Short protective prayers1
Taʾammǝra Giyorgis1
Taʾammǝra ʾIyasus1
Taʾammǝra Māryām4
Thanksgiving to God1
Untitled magic prayer1
Untitled prayer1
Yǝweddǝsǝwwa malāʾǝkt la-Māryām1
ማዝ ሙር፡ ዘዮሐንስ፡1
ሰዓታቲሁ፡ ለእግዚእነ። ዘመዕልት፡ ወዘሌሊት፡1
በስመ፡ አብ፡ ወወልድ፡ ወመንፈስ፡ ቅዱስ፡ ፩አምላክ፨ ገድል፡ ወስምዕ፡ ዘቅዱስ፡ ስብስትያኖስ፡ ዘፈጸመ፡ ገድሎ፨ አመ፡ ፳ወ፭፡ ለወርኃ፡ ጥር፡1
ተአምሪሃቲሃ፡ ለእግዝእትነ፡ ማርያም፡1
ድርሳን፡ ዘገብርኤል፡ ሊቀ፡ መላእክት፡ አመ፡ በዓሉ፡ ዘይትነበብ፡1
ጸሎተ፡ ፍሃቄ፡ (Prayer against Fǝhāqe)1
14501
14991
15491
15741
15992
16601
18001
18471
18491
19001
13502
14001
14251
14501
15002
16301
16501
17001
551
Tǝwkǝlta Māryām1
Codex7
Leaf1
15.131
1591
2081
2451
8.881
no6
yes1
paper2
parchment5
02
11
21
41
51
81
04
22
41
03
111
31
61
71
13
22
32
06
51
07
101
1251
1641
211
481
711
771
1+198+11
1011
11
164 (I + 163)1
1971
2+278+21
411
92.01
no7
Bāḥǝrā Qǝddǝst Māryām1
Berlin State Library1
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana2
British Library3
1A-1A-1A1A/0-0/0-0/C2
1A-1A-1A1A/0-0/0-0/J1
Yāʿqob1
Ethiopic7
only metadata7
bindingMaterial6
drawing1
Endbands1
engraving2
frame1
miniature5
ornamentation2
Other1
unspecified1
diocletian1
ethiopian1
islamic1
world1
DonationNote2
Excerpt1
Excommunication1
Inventory1
OwnershipNote4
Record1
RecordDistribution1
ScribalSupplication1
Supplication1
Unclear1
Correction1
ScribalSupplication1
StampExlibris1
Unclear1
1191
13.51
1351
1951
6.51
111
15 171
181
19 251
20 211
21 221
22 271
231
301
Textual and Narrative Units
only metadata7
Places and Repositories
Persons and Groups
14502
14991
15992
16601
18001
13501
14001
14251
15002
16301
17001
17501
ethnic1
n/a7
individual7

There are 7 entities matching your text query for "" with the parameters shown at the right. (searched: )

Search time: 1.313 seconds.
mode: anytitletext: https://betamasaheft.eu/LIT3692MiraclesearchType: textwork-types: mss
    title
    hits count
    first three keywords in context
    item-type specific options
    Signatures
    SBP, Ms. orient. oct. 1270
    Short Description
    This parchment codex is composed of 41 leaves. It has 9 main content units in 1 codicological unit. Available dates of origin in the description: Mid-14th mid-15th century (dating on palaeographic grounds). There is 1 hand described with Ethiopic script attested. The description does not include a collation of the quires.
    placespersonsrelations

    List of related persons

    No persons related to this manuscripts are known.

    Signatures
    BHM-002
    Short Description
    This parchment codex is composed of 92.0 leaves. It has 43 main content units in 2 codicological units. Available dates of origin in the description: 1700-1800. There are The description does not include a collation of the quires.
    Signatures
    BL Additional 16192, Dillmann cat. XLI, Dillmann 41
    Short Description
    This parchment codex is composed of 101 leaves. It has 76 main content units in 4 codicological units. Available dates of origin in the description: 1350-1847 1350-1549 (dating on palaeographic grounds) 1650-1849 (dating on palaeographic grounds) 1425-1574 (dating on palaeographic grounds) 1450-1549 (dating on palaeographic grounds). There are The description does not include a collation of the quires.
    placespersonsrelations

    List of related persons

    No persons related to this manuscripts are known.

    Signatures
    BL Oriental 641, Wright cat. LXXX, Wright 80
    Short Description
    This parchment codex is composed of 2+278+2 leaves. It has 89 main content units in 1 codicological unit. Available dates of origin in the description: 1630-1660 (dating on palaeographic grounds). There is 1 hand described with Ethiopic script attested. The description includes a collation of the quires.
    placespersonsrelations

    List of related persons

    No persons related to this manuscripts are known.

    Signatures
    BL Oriental 652, Wright cat. LXXVII, Wright 77
    Short Description
    This parchment codex is composed of 1+198+1 leaves. It has 162 main content units in 1 codicological unit. Available dates of origin in the description: 1400-1499 (dating on palaeographic grounds) according to . There are The description does not include a collation of the quires.
    placespersonsrelations

    List of related persons

    No persons related to this manuscripts are known.

    Signatures
    Aeth. 24
    Short Description
    This paper codex is composed of 197 leaves. It has 66 main content units in 1 codicological unit. Available dates of origin in the description: 1500-1599. There is 1 hand described with Ethiopic script attested. The description includes a collation of the quires.
    Signatures
    Aeth. 8,
    Short Description
    This leather codex is composed of 164 (I + 163) 1 leaves. It has 19 main content units in 2 codicological units. Available dates of origin in the description: 1500-1599 1500-1900. There are The description includes a collation of the quires.