The article summarizes the results of the research at Däbrä Zäyt, one of the historical sites discovered by the team of the project Ethio-SPARE (Hamburg University, Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies) in Gulo Mäḵäda, East Təgray. It presents different types of historical evidence (old church building of the site, an inscription, the church library) and focuses on the analysis of the fragments of the so-called “old Golden Gospel” of Däbrä Zäyt, written presumably by the same scribe as the one of the well-known ms. Vat. Aeth. 25.

Among the traditions transmitted in Ethiopian hagiographic works, those referring to the encounters between Täklä Haymanot 1 and Iyäsus Moýa 2two late 13 th-/early 14 th-cent. monastic leaders and great Ethiopian saints-1 There is no need to quote all existing scholarly literature on Täklä Haymanot's activities, hagiography and cult, or all works on the history of his monastic foundation, Däbrä Libanos of äwa. These topics have been discussed in a number of publications, ranging from brief entries in reference-books to chapters in monographs [for the list of abbreviations used in this article see p.

It has been known that only a part of the parchment manuscripts of Mäqdäla library seized by British expeditionary force in 1868 entered European collections. Many of those manuscripts stayed in Ethiopia but not much was known about them. New information on these manuscripts has been recently gathered by the team of the project “Ethio-SPaRe: Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia – Salvation, Preservation and Research”. Among manuscripts registered in monasteries and churches of East Tǝgray, some could have been identified as manuscripts previously coming from Mäqdäla library. The article presents these manuscripts and some of their features.

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The Ethiopian Orthodox monastery of Santo Stefano degli Abissini in Rome was one of four diasporic Ethiopian communities around the Mediterranean and played a central role in disseminating knowledge about Ethiopian language, culture, and religion in sixteenth-century Europe. Yet apart from its most famous member, Täsfa Ṣǝyon, very little is known about the identities and careers of its monks. This article draws on the surviving Geez manuscripts of Santo Stefano's own library, as well as European correspondence and archival documents, to reconstruct the biographies of two influential denizens of Santo Stefano. Hitherto believed to be a single person, Yoḥannǝs of Qänṭorare and Giovanni Battista "the Indian" (whom we identify instead as Yoḥannǝs of Cyprus) in fact followed quite different career trajectories, and illustrate the variety of ways in which Ethiopian Orthodox identity could be negotiated in a Catholic European setting.