“…Contemporaneous historical figures are also depicted, including the patron, Mahari Amlak (who first dedicated the church to Saint George before its name was changed to Mika'el), Her Amlak (the scribe), and governor [ seyum ] Newaya Krestos. These figures are accompanied by inscriptions asking the saints represented in the paintings to pray for both these men and for King Yekuno Amlak (Figure 6: P1–5; Figure 9) (Mercier 2002; Derat 2018: 196–200). Figure 9.Pillar facing the western entrance, with two sculpted crosses and a depiction of the archangel Michael (P4) from the time of King Yekuno Amlak (1270–1285), commissioned by Mahari Amlak.…”
Section: Documenting a Wider Troglodytic Culture Around Lalibela: Wasmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The only extant documents from the reign of King Lalibela comprise a few land grants copied in manuscripts and inscriptions on altar stands, which are still kept in churches at the site today (Bosc-Tiessé 2010; Derat 2018: 29–86). Thus, while these small documentary windows enable us to confirm that at least some of the site's churches were in existence in the thirteenth century, they contribute little to answering the questions raised above.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Many historians of medieval Ethiopia believe that the rise of the Zagwe Dynasty, following the fall of Aksum, occurred against the background of a resurgence in the power of the Agaws (Tamrat 1988). Whether the Zagwe monarchs were themselves of Agaw ethnicity is still debated (Derat 2018: 242–56), and we must also be careful not to project back twentieth-century settlement patterns to the first centuries of the second millennium.…”
“…Contemporaneous historical figures are also depicted, including the patron, Mahari Amlak (who first dedicated the church to Saint George before its name was changed to Mika'el), Her Amlak (the scribe), and governor [ seyum ] Newaya Krestos. These figures are accompanied by inscriptions asking the saints represented in the paintings to pray for both these men and for King Yekuno Amlak (Figure 6: P1–5; Figure 9) (Mercier 2002; Derat 2018: 196–200). Figure 9.Pillar facing the western entrance, with two sculpted crosses and a depiction of the archangel Michael (P4) from the time of King Yekuno Amlak (1270–1285), commissioned by Mahari Amlak.…”
Section: Documenting a Wider Troglodytic Culture Around Lalibela: Wasmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The only extant documents from the reign of King Lalibela comprise a few land grants copied in manuscripts and inscriptions on altar stands, which are still kept in churches at the site today (Bosc-Tiessé 2010; Derat 2018: 29–86). Thus, while these small documentary windows enable us to confirm that at least some of the site's churches were in existence in the thirteenth century, they contribute little to answering the questions raised above.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Many historians of medieval Ethiopia believe that the rise of the Zagwe Dynasty, following the fall of Aksum, occurred against the background of a resurgence in the power of the Agaws (Tamrat 1988). Whether the Zagwe monarchs were themselves of Agaw ethnicity is still debated (Derat 2018: 242–56), and we must also be careful not to project back twentieth-century settlement patterns to the first centuries of the second millennium.…”
Written supports have become a fully-fledged research subject. In themselves, as well as through their articulation with the sign or signs inscribed therein, they reveal complex discourses, practices and social interactions with vast temporal and geographical ramifications. The interest in written supports is part of the explosion of modes of materiality, in particular, the widespread use of devices for digitizing handwritten and printed textual resources on a global scale and the democratization of its consultation. Initiated some twenty years ago, 2 this movement has now reached a maturity that allows us to reflect not only on the materiality of scriptural documents, but also on the sensory relationship we have with these documents. Indeed, scriptural materiality is not only accessible through a codicological approach to physical media and its ownership. It must also be considered in terms of the sensitive and felt effects of the uses of a support. If, on one hand, the dematerialization resulting from the digitization of documents has revived questions about the physical processes of writing production, on the other, digital vectors and their on-screen display can also be considered as additional layers in the sensitive relationship between the reader and a text. Thus, digital forms of communication reorganize information, while adding new ones through the association and/or dissociation of forms and materials (Bonaccorsi 2013: 127). Therefore, it seemed appropriate to engage in a historical and anthropological reflection that does not start from the narrative content of the texts, but from their supports, in order to understand the societies that produce and receive these texts, but also our own relationship, as researchers, to the written object. 2 This reflection is the starting point of this special issue devoted to the materiality of writing in African contexts. It is part of the renewal of historical and anthropological studies on writing in Europe and, over the past twenty years, in Africa. In the aftermath of the archival shift from archive-source to archive-subject (Stoler 2018: 78, see also Words of Paper. Materiality of Writing and its Discourses in African Contexts Cahiers d'études africaines, 236 | 2019
This Cambridge Element offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the histories of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands from late antiquity to the late medieval period, updating traditional Western academic perspectives. Early scholarship, often by philologists and religious scholars, upheld 'Ethiopia' as an isolated repository of ancient Jewish and Christian texts. This work reframes the region's history, highlighting the political, economic, and cultural interconnections of different kingdoms, polities, and peoples. Utilizing recent advancements in Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies as well as Medieval Studies, it reevaluates key instances of contact between 'Ethiopia' and the world of Afro-Eurasia, situating the histories of the Christian, Muslim, and local-religious or 'pagan' groups living in the Red Sea littoral and the Eritrean-Ethiopian highlands in the context of the Global Middle Ages.
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