Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies is an internationally refereed academic journal. The journal focuses on philology, linguistics, archaeology, history, cultural anthropology, religion, philosophy, literature, and manuscript studies with a regional emphasis on Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa, and related areas.
Universität Hamburg, Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies
Periodization of Ethiopian History: Reflections, Questions, and some Modest Suggestions
Historians have for many decades struggled with issues of periodization. In comparison to many other regions, scholars of Ethiopian history, particularly after the Aksumite period, have written comparatively little on this subject. This article considers some of the weaknesses of periodizations based on dynastic change or periods of a strong central state. It also suggests that attention to gender, class, geography, and ethnicity may assist in formulating, but also complicate periodizations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Steven Kaplan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Butts Aaron https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Editor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
An Ethiopic 'Homily on Peter' attributed to Ephrem
An edition, with English translation, is provided of an Ethiopic ‘Homily on Peter’, attributed to Ephrem the Syrian (d.373), which is uniquely attested in MS Ethio-SPaRe UM-046, fols 148v–151v. This Ethiopic homily ultimately goes back—undoubtedly via Arabic—to a Syriac stanzaic poem (soḡiṯā) recently edited by S. P. Brock.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aaron Michael Butts, Ted Erho, Jonas Karlsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
In memoriam Michael A. Knibb (1938–2023)
Copyright (c) 2025 Alessandro Bausi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of ERIC J. BECK, Justice and Mercy in the Apocalypse of Peter: A New Translation and Analysis of the Purpose of the Text
Die Angelologie der Aksimaros-Literatur. Aufnahme und Anwendung eines literarischen Motivs
Copyright (c) 2025 Sophia Dege-Müller https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
A Critical Text Edition, Translation, and Analysis of a Gǝʿǝz Tǝrgwame to the Book of Daniel
Copyright (c) 2025 James Hamrick https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of KAI MERTEN, Mäsqäl. Die Traditionsgeschichte des Festes um das wahre Kreuz Jesu in Äthiopien
Copyright (c) 2025 Christine Ghali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Long Voyage of MS Paris, BnF, Éthiopien 32 from Egypt to France (1344/1371–1640s)
The study of archival documents inserted in the pages and margins of MS Paris, BnF, Éthiopien 32 uncovers the long voyage of this codex from Egypt to France. It is unclear if it was produced in the thirteenth or in the fourteenth century, in Egypt or in Ethiopia, but it was certainly donated by king Säyfä ʾArʿad (r.1344–1371) to the new Ethiopian community established in a monastery in Middle Egypt, Dayr al-Muḥarraq. From 1388 to 1507/1508, this manuscript was used to store its legal and from Egypt to France (1344/1371 administrative documents. In the 1520s, MS Paris, BnF, Éthiopien 32 was transferred to the Cairene monastery of Dayr ʾAbū Mīnā, where a new Ethiopian church was built next to the Syriac and Armenian communities. In the 1640s, French merchant Jean Magy acquired this manuscript in Cairo, perhaps in Dayr ʾAbū Mīnā itself, on the account of chancellor Pierre Séguier (1588–1672). It is now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Copyright (c) 2025 Martina Ambu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
La destrucción patrimonial durante la guerra entre el sultanato de Bar Saʿad ad-Dīn y el reino cristiano de Etiopía (1529–1543)
Copyright (c) 2025 Mario Lozano Alonso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of MIKAEL MUEHLBAUER, Bastions of the Cross: Medieval Rock-Cut Cruciform Churches of Tigray, Ethiopia
Copyright (c) 2025 Michael Gervers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Historical Geography of Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jewish) Involvement in the Conflict between the Solomonic Kingdom and the Forces of Imām Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ġāzī
The Səmen Mountains, the core region of Betä Ǝsraʾel political autonomy (fourteenth–seventeenth century), played a key role in the sixteenth-century conflict between the Solomonic Kingdom and the forces of Imām Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ġāzī. While the involvement of the autonomous Betä Ǝsraʾel in this conflict has been addressed in scholarship, the sites associated with this involvement had not been accurately pinpointed. In 1959, Charles Fraser Beckingham published an article, in which he traced geographical aspects of the campaigns of 1542 waged as part of the above-mentioned conflict. A key site which he addressed was the ‘Mountain of the Jews’. This stronghold played a key role in these campaigns, and within it, the Solomonic monarchy found a safe haven and a base from which to launch the war to re-take the northern Ethiopian Highlands. Beckingham correctly suggested a general location for this stronghold but was unable to locate it with precision due to lack of detailed geographical information on the eastern Səmen Mountains. Based on a detailed examination of historical and modern maps, satellite images, and information posted on social media, this study suggests an exact location for this stronghold and other sites mentioned in the context of Betä Ǝsraʾel involvement in the conflict in question. This enables this involvement to be re-evaluated and better understood in light of the precise geographical context of the events in question.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bar Kribus https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
In Search of Zärʾa Yaʿqob: A Study of the Philosophy and Intellectual History of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿqob and the Debate Concerning its Authorship
Copyright (c) 2025 Jonathan Egid https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of SAMANTHA KELLY, Translating Faith: Ethiopian Pilgrims in Renaissance Rome
Copyright (c) 2025 Anais Wion https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Stranded in Dongola: MS Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. et. 44, 71v–76v, a Colophon by Takla ʾAlfā, Reconsidered
The paper offers a re-edition of a valuable first-hand account concerning sixteenth-century Sudan, recorded in Gǝʿǝz by the Ethiopian monk Takla ʾAlfā during his stay at Dongola in 1596. Notably, Takla ʾAlfā was the only known Ethiopian visitor to post-medieval Dongola to leave an account of his visit. The colophon, MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. et. 44, 71v–76v, is preceded by hymns composed by the monk and offers insights into the circumstances of their creation. The text, which represents an expanded colophon with autobiographical elements, has received limited scholarly attention, but has a number of remarkable features. It sheds light on some philological practices and indicates a connection between the fast of our Lady Mary of the Mount of Qwǝsqwām and king Śarḍa Dǝngǝl. The newly identified reference to ǧǝlābā merchants in the colophon is the earliest known mention of the term in primary sources concerning Sudan. While the reference to a light in the sky remains vague, it adds to the corpus of Ethiopic narratives featuring celestial apparitions as meaningful quasi-supernatural elements or signs.
Copyright (c) 2025 Daria Elagina, Dorota Dzierzbicka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Battles over State Making on a Frontier: Dilemmas of Schooling, Young People and Agro-Pastoralism in Hamar, Southwest Ethiopia
Copyright (c) 2025 Sabrina Maurus https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Mirror of Intelligence and the Controversy on Christ’s Unction in the Ethiopian Church
The present article examines the theological treatise The Mirror of Intelligence within the context of the controversy about Christ’s unction in the Ethiopian Church during the seventeenth century. The introductory section offers an overview of the early phase of the debate, presenting the diverse positions involved and tracing the evolution of the theological dispute. The subsequent two sections delve into the use of rhetorical devices in The Mirror of Intelligence and other contemporary theological works. Through this analysis, the article explores the intersection of creativity and religious reflection in literary production, shedding light on the pivotal role of figurative language as a medium of theological discourse.
Copyright (c) 2025 Giulia Casella https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of FEDERICO FALOPPA, Sbiancare un etiope. La costruzione di un immaginario razzista
Islamic Law, Linguistic Complexity and Scientific Knowledge: A Note on an Arabic Zoological List from Ethiopia
In the present article a list of Arabic animal names copied in a codex kept in a collection in the town of Agaro (Jimma Zone, Oromia Region) is published and analyzed. Together with the Arabic words, the short text contains also explicatory glosses and translations into Amharic and Oromo. The authors describe the origin and the function of the text, setting it into the wider framework of the production of lists and glossaries in the manuscript traditions of Ethiopia. They then study the structure and content of the list from zoological and linguistic points of view, highlighting the interpretational issues that the author of the text had to face and solve.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alessandro Gori, Philippe Provençal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of FRIEDRICH JULIUS BIEBER, Reisen nach Äthiopien, Tagebücher 1904, 1905, 1909 ed. SAYURI YOSHIDA
Copyright (c) 2025 Alexander Chenchenko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Archives of Kirsten Pedersen (1932–2017): Inventory and Research Perspectives
Catholic nun and historian, Kirsten Pedersen (1932–2017), also known as Kirsten Stoffregen Pedersen and Sister Abraham, is renowned for her scholarly work on the history of Ethiopian Christianity. Located in Jerusalem, her archives (books and documents) were inventoried by the Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem (CRFJ) in 2023 and then donated to the library of the École Biblique et Archéologique (EBAF) in Jerusalem. The aim of this article is firstly to provide an overview of Pedersen’s archives to encourage all researchers to consult them. Providing biographical and bibliographical elements about Pedersen, this paper describes the more interesting books and printed materials owned by her as well as provides a short description of the archival boxes, highlighting the most remarkable documents. Furthermore this paper aims to show the scientific interest of these archives, suggesting some of the research prospects open to researchers thanks to the documents preserved in them.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stéphane Ancel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of MORENO VERGARI, ed., with the contributions of AHMEDSAAD MOHAMMED OMER, GIORGIO BANTI, GIANNI DORE, MORENO VERGARI, and ROBERTA VERGARI, Housing and Dwelling Among the Saho-speaking Communities of Eritrea and Ethiopia: History, Anthropology and Lexicography
Copyright (c) 2025 Abdulkader Saleh Mohammad https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of MARIE HUBER, Developing Heritage—Developing Countries: Ethiopian NationBuilding and the Origins of UNESCO World Heritage, 1960–1980
Copyright (c) 2025 Nadine Appelhans https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Ethiopian TV Drama: Development from Moot-Court Rudimentary Viewing to Screening Advanced Serial
It is now more than one hundred years since theatre and cinema were introduced to Ethiopia, and PhD dissertations, books, and journal articles pertinent to the arts have been published by expatriate and local academia. In the same vein, hundreds of TV dramas have been produced in Ethiopia in the last 60 years under various socio-economic and political milieus of the Imperial era, the Därg military government, and the EPRDF. Ethiopian TV drama as a subject area, nonetheless, has not attracted the attention of national and international researchers adequately so far. This article attempts to fill this gap in scholarship by illustrating the development of Ethiopian television drama that started in 1964 with the screening of a Moot-Court exercise of law students of Haile Sellasie I University, to gradually acquire a qualitative change with professional production of the serial Gämäna in 2001/2009. The study rather goes beyond this historical period highlighting the overview of the last six decades by way of depicting the legacy of the serial Gämäna as a conclusion. This study hopefully will contribute to the general comprehension of Ethiopian television drama in particular and African TV drama in general. It also commemorates the 60th anniversary of the advent of television drama in Ethiopia.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aboneh Ashagrie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of DAVIDE CHINIGÒ, Everyday Practices of State Building in Ethiopia: Power, Scale, Performativity
Copyright (c) 2025 Felix Girke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Die Henne oder das Ei? azzo oder -zo? Weitere Spekulationen zu einem pronominalen Problem des Harari
There is no consensus among Ethiopists on the question of whether the Harari enclitic possessive suffix 3sg. m. -zo is an eroded form of the personal pronoun azzo (Appleyard, Huehnergard and Pat-El) or whether azzo emerged from -zo by being prefixed with another morpheme (Cerulli, Leslau). The present article attempts a solution to this problem by considering it against the background of the overall development of the pronominal system of Harari (personal, possessive and demonstrative pronouns), on the one hand, and the historical areal context, on the other. The author considers -zo as the more likely starting point and proposes a fivestage development for the emergence of azzo. In the final section, however, the reverse process, the development of -zo from azzo, is briefly discussed as a possible alternative.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ewald Wagner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Emotions, Morality, and Cognition: The Unprecedented Scope of the Concept of the Heart in Amharic
This study sheds light on the unique conceptualization of the heart in Amharic, based on dictionary data, corpus data, and a self-collected corpus of text excerpts. What stands out is the unusually vast scope of the concept, which embraces not only emotions, character and morality, but also cognition, and, to some extent, rationality. Thus, the noun ləbb can, depending on the context, be translated into English as ‘mind’, ‘good sense’, or even ‘reason’. The broad scope of the concept is even better seen in light of the derivatives of the word ləbb, most notably the noun ləbbuna / ləbbona, connected with psyche, reason, and the sense of right and wrong, as well as the adjectives ləbbam and ləbbeñña, meaning ‘intelligent, attentive’. The uniqueness of the Amharic worldview is also reflected in the conceptualizations underlying the single idiomatic phrases formed with the noun ləbb, as well as the connection it has to the other parts of the Amharic worldview. Particularly worth highlighting here is the figure of God, around whom the whole Amharic worldview revolves, as well as the concept of aʾǝməro ‘mind’, which does not introduce the same stark opposition between the mind and the heart as the one known from European languages and discourses.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aleksander Kacprzak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of BAHRU ZEWDE, ኅብር ሕይወቴ፡ ግለ ታሪክ (ḫǝbr ḥǝywäte: gǝllä tarik, ‘My Composite Life: Autobiography’)
Copyright (c) 2025 Hewan Semon Marye https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of MICHAEL W. THOMAS, Popular Ethiopian Cinema: Love and Other Genres
Copyright (c) 2025 Alessandro Jedlowski https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Bibliography of Ethiopian Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic Linguistics XXVII: 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Krzyżanowska Magdalena, Bulakh Maria, Ghion-Hamadu Karin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of ARCHIE T. WRIGHT, Basics of Ancient Ethiopic: A Complete Grammar, Workbook, and Lexicon, Foreword by LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK
Copyright (c) 2025 Jonas Karlsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Review of RAINER VOIGT, Tigrinische Bibliographie
Copyright (c) 2025 Bairu Tafla https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0