Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea

✖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).

Shelf marks (full list)Manuscripts (search)List of Digitized Manuscripts Catalogues Encoded Inscriptions

Here you can browse a full list of manuscripts available on the platform, arranged by repositories and shelf marks (clicking on the "show list" button will expand the list for each location). This menu takes you to the search form listing all manuscripts encoded by the project. On the left side you get filters based on the indexes for that type of resources in the database, on the right side you will see your search results in a multi-page table (20 per page). You can refine the results by applying the filters. Here you can view a list of manuscripts that have digitized images available online elsewhere. The list of manuscript catalogues that were used as sources for our records. Clicking on one of the titles will open a list view with all the manuscripts in that catalogue that have been encoded. Inscriptions are an inseparable part of the manuscript tradition and its direct precursors, therefore we also offer the encoding of the known inscriptions from Ethiopia and Eritrea wherever possible. Part of the encoding is carried out in Hamburg, part is the result of cooperation with other projects, such as DASI: Digital Archive for the Study of pre-islamic Arabian Inscriptions.

✖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.

Clavis Aethiopica (Works)Narrative Units Studies

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.

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