| Summary: | In the mid-18th century, at the royal court of Gondar, the scriptorium of King Iyo’ās (1755-1769) imported sheets of paper to make a lectionary (senkesar) in three volumes. Today, one volume remains in Addis Ababa at the Ethiopian National Archives and Library Agency, Department of Manuscripts, under the serial number 197. It is the only known Ethiopian Christian manuscript on paper. In Ethiopia, Christians copied their manuscripts exclusively on parchment. This innovative and ambitious project met the most sophisticated Ethiopian standards while adapting the codicological norms to the requirements of this new medium. Craftsmen who knew how to work on paper, foreigners or Ethiopians trained by foreigners, made this volume. The status of this manuscript was high enough to be part of the imperial library at the turn of the twentieth century and then included in the national heritage collection.
|
|---|