Suchergebnisse

The history of the Eritrean capital city doesn't begin in 19th cent., as commonly admitted. Evidences from archaeological excavations prove that the Asmara plateau, particularly the Sämbäl zone, hosted of a proto-urban culture already in early and mid-1st millennium BC. The remnants of Ǝnda Maryam, the 6th-7th cent. Christian church unhappily demolished by the Italians, indicate that Asmara was one of the main East African centers of Late Antiquity. In 14th-15th cent. Gǝ'ǝz hagiographic texts and Latin and Italian notes and itineraries help clarifying the historical picture of the Märäb Mǝllaš territories and the role of the political authority dwelling in the Eritrean capital city.

Ethiopian literary tradition offers many opportunities to study how political and social identities developed and changed through the centuries, even though reading written documents entails the risk of being influenced by the ideology of the cultural centers that built up the different narratives. Among the possible examples, three case studies are herein presented: the social structure of the first dwellers of the Ethiopian highlands as it emerges from the inscriptions they left, the cultural identity of the kings of Aksum and of the Zagwe dynasty, the enigmatic ethnogenesis of the Amḥara. The analysis of the texts aims at giving interpretations based only upon philological evidence and not influenced by old and modern preconceptions.

Ethiopian literary tradition offers many opportunities to study how political and social identities developed and changed through the centuries, even though reading written documents entails the risk of being influenced by the ideology of the cultural centers that built up the different narratives. Among the possible examples, three case studies are herein presented: the social structure of the first dwellers of the Ethiopian highlands as it emerges from the inscriptions they left, the cultural identity of the kings of Aksum and of the Zagwe dynasty, the enigmatic ethnogenesis of the Amḥara. The analysis of the texts aims at giving interpretations based only upon philological evidence and not influenced by old and modern preconceptions.

The presence of literary works of Roman origin or milieu inside the Christian Aksumite tradition allows us to reconstruct the image of the Empire circulating among the Christians of Aksum. An antagonism between Church and State and a mistrust of any form of political and social organization were the basic concepts that works like the "Shepherd" of Hermas and the "Antichrist" of Hyppolitus transmitted to Ethiopian Christianity, particularly its monastic centres. In contrast to this tendency, a literary trend dating back to the ancient core of the "Kebra nagaśt" supported the aspirations of the Aksumite leadership by promoting an image of the Christian Ethiopian king as a hero in the end of the days in keeping with millenarian expectations.

In the Biblioteca Forteguerriana of Pistoia (Italy), a small collection of Ethiopian manuscripts is kept, entrusted to the Library by the heirs of Ferdinando Martini (1841-1928), "governatore civile" of the Colonia Eritrea from 1897 to 1907. These five manuscripts are catalogued here. Of great philological and artistic relevance is the illustrated Octateuch dated 1438 (Ms. Martini etiop. n. 2 = Zanutto n. 5), probably written in Tigrāy, namely in the monastery of Dabra Seqwert, district of Saḥart. In the XIXth-cent. chronological codex Martini etiop. n. 1 (= Zanutto n. 1), the materials transmitted by the traditional Liber Axumae are considerably enlarged and updated. The homiletic volume Martini etiop. n. 5 (= Zanutto n. 2), previously owned by Eǧǧegāyyahu, the mother of Menilek II (1844–1913), Emperor from 1889 to 1913, dates back to the XIXth cent. and contains various texts, still unpublished. The collection includes also an XVIIIth-cent. Hāymānota 'abaw (Ms. Martini etiop. n. 4 = Zanutto n. 4), closing with the apocryphal Book of the Letter, and a XVII–XVIIIth-cent. History of the Galla (Ms. Martini etiop. n. 3 = Zanutto n. 3), possibly the oldest manuscript of one of the first works of Amharic literature.

Review

The novel ʿƎmanini ("Trust me") by Mohammed Ali Ibrahim Mohammed (born 1966) is the first work written in Tigre by a native speaker. This is a true literary and linguistic experiment, which will greatly enrich our knowledge of the Tǝgrāyǝt grammar and vocabulary, specifically its little known variant spoken among the Beni ʿAmǝr. Several phonetic, morphological, syntactical and lexical peculiarities of the text are here examined in order to reveal whether they are dictated by linguistic constraints (lexico-semantic, grammatical or pragmatic), or have been chosen by the author as stylistic devices for reasons of expressiveness. Passages of ʿƎmanini are here published, translated and commented.

The apocryphal Acts of Mark (Gädlä Marqos) were translated from Greek in Ethiopic in the last years of the reign of ʿEzana, between 360 and 370. They are transmitted only by two manuscripts: EMML 1763, ff. 224–227 (=A), dated 1336/37 or 1339/40 and pub-lished by Getatchew Haile, "A new Ethiopic version of the Acts of St. Mark (EMML 1763, ff. 224r–227r)", Analecta Bollandiana, 99, 1981, pp. 117–134; and Pistoia, Biblioteca Forteguerriana, ms. Martini etiop. n. 5 (= Zanutto n. 2), ff. 82–89 (= B), 18th–19th cent., recently discovered (G.L., "I codici etiopici del Fondo Martini nella Biblioteca Forte-guerriana di Pistoia", Aethiopica, V, 2002, pp. 156–176, pp. 171–175). A new critical edition of the text of Gädlä Marqos is given here, together with a study of the Christian Ethiopian literature of the Axumite age.