Malkəʾa ʾArsimā (‘Image of Hripsime’): An Ethiopic Hymn for an Armenian Saint

Despite the growth of a cult for the Armenian martyr Hripsime in Ethiopia during the Middle Ages, no malkəʾ-hymn dedicated to her can be found in manuscripts predating the eighteenth century. There are two extant witnesses, one from the early eighteenth century and one from the nineteenth or twentieth century, to a Malkəʾa ʾArsimā containing seventeen stanzas. Evidently this hymn is the one named in a list of titles of malkəʾ-hymns extant in four manuscripts, two of which indicate that the hymn should have seventeen stanzas. While shorter than most, the hymn skilfully incorporates allusions to biblical stories, including Esther and Judith, paraphrases of and references to verses from the Old and New Testaments, and references to the flight to Egypt and Mount Koskam. While the text seemingly fell out of use, there being no later manuscript witnesses or printed editions of it, a different, longer malkəʾ-hymn was at some point composed and is now widespread in printed collections

Azmzâde Sadik el-Müeyyed, The Ethiopia Book of Travels, ed., tr., Giyas Müeyyed Gökkent and Family

Book review

Editorial

Editoria

La guerra d’Etiopia: una crisi globale

Dissertation abstract

Front matter Aethiopica Vol. 26

Front matte

The Ethiopic Homily on Holy Easter attributed to John Theologos and its Arabic Vorlage (CPG 4163.2)

In the standard reference works for Ethiopian and Eritrean studies, one finds a Homily on Holy Easter (CAe 1265) attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus and identified as one of his Orations (CPG 3010). Both the attribution and identification are, however, incorrect. Rather, this Homily on Holy Easter, which is actually attributed to an otherwise unknown John Theologos in the earliest recoverable layer of the Ethiopic tradition, is to be identified as an Ethiopic version of a homily, recorded as CPG 4163.2, attested in two Arabic manuscripts, one where it is attributed to Ephrem and the other where it is anonymous

Exploring the Ethnicity and Social Condition of Muslim Calligraphers: A Short Note on Two Scribes from the Horn of Africa in the Mamlūk Period

Thus far, very little is known of the social origin and position of scribes and calligraphers in the premodern Islamic world. The difficulty in finding data on the biographies and activities of the professional practitioners of calligraphy in historiographical works is probably one of the main causes of this regrettable situation. Taking as a starting point the results of some previous groundbreaking research, the present article gathers scattered information retrieved from different sources about two calligraphers from the Horn of Africa that lived and worked in the Middle East during the Mamlūk period. In the analysis of these two cases, it is hoped that some light will be shed on the presence of calligraphic masters from the Horn in the Arab world from which may be gained, on a more general level, a better picture of the personalities of calligraphers in the Islamic world

The Location of the Candace Episode in the Alexander Romance and the Chronicle of John Malalas

The Alexander Romance is vague about Alexander's passage from India to the realm of Candace of Meroë, but seems to suggest it is accomplished swiftly and easily. The earliest versions of the Romance, moreover, indicate there were close relations between Candace's kingdom and India, even that her ancestors once held power over India. If Candace's realm is identified as Ethiopia, this is a perplexing state of affairs. But it seems to have taken on a plausibility with the rise of the kingdom of Aksum. In the De Vita Bragmanorum Palladius depicts Aksum as a province of a vast empire centred on Sri Lanka. But it is John Malalas, in his universal chronicle, who modifies the story of Alexander and Candace to explicitly locate it in Aksum, or the land of the 'Inner Indians', as distinct from both India and Ethiopia. This modification not only made sense of several details in the Alexander Romance, but was also consistent with shifting attitudes toward Ethiopians and Aksumites in Late Antiquity

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Table of content

A Hitherto Unattested Ethio-Sabaean King in a Woman's Altar Dedication from Ṣ́ǝrḥan (Tǝgray/Ethiopia)—Edition, Translation and Commentary

An altar block found not far from Ǝntǝč̣č̣o bears an Ethio-Sabaean inscription which documents the dedication of the altar to the goddess ḏāt Ḥamēn by a female. This new find is of particular historical significance as it gives the name of a previously unattested king, who can be assigned genealogically to one of the known lines of rulers