Aksumite Collection

The Aksumite Collection is a <a href="/facts/Manuscript/A6XNmrTd">manuscript</a> written in <a href="/facts/Ge%25CA%25BDez/8ks8q9Hm">Geʽez</a> containing multiple texts, these being the earliest known canon-law and liturgical texts in the Geʽez language. The manuscript can be dated using <a href="/facts/Paleography/QsVXMhMj">paleography</a> to the 13th century <a href="/facts/Terminus_ante_quem/hT4ejCFf">at the latest</a>, but represents a collection of translations of texts from Greek into Geʽez that were made during <a href="/facts/Late_Antiquity/sPTl0dyD">Late Antiquity</a>, sometime between the fifth and sixth centuries AD, or to the seventh at the latest, during the period of the <a href="/facts/Kingdom_of_Aksum/oUqHznzK">Kingdom of Aksum</a>.
The texts found in the Aksumite Collection cover the areas of canon law, liturgy, the history of Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries, and the history of church councils. It was likely arranged between the mid-5th and mid-6th centuries, and its content shows strong ties to an <a href="/facts/Egypt/8Ttg0JwB">Egyptian</a> setting, especially with <a href="/facts/Alexandria/hdg1twWA">Alexandrian</a> archives. Some of its contents are works that have previously been lost, and now are only known from the Aksumite Collection. An example being the <a href="/facts/Apostolic_Tradition/D7zQnUb2">Apostolic Tradition</a>, the most important Christian canonico-liturgical document, previously only known from Latin fragments, now known more completely from the Aksumite Collection. Other texts contained in the manuscript include the History of the Episcopate of Alexandria, Baptismal Order, <a href="/facts/Euchologion/Y8kDaz9l">Euchologion</a>, the Canons of Chalcedon, the treatise On the One Judge, etc. The work of <a href="/facts/Giyorgis_of_Segla/6KyvF0Tx">Giyorgis of Sägla</a> in the 15th century reveals that <a href="/facts/Ethiopia/LVujNp5v">Ethiopia</a>'s <a href="/facts/Late_antiquity/sPTl0dyD">late antique</a> heritage, attested by the Aksumite Collection, continued to be received in Ethiopia's medieval period.
The finding of the manuscript in 1999 disrupted the understanding then of the development of the literary history, textual transmission, and translation dynamics during Ethiopia during Late Antiquity. It was discovered by Jacques Mercier who committed its study to Alessandro Bausi, who continues to be its primary researcher and is working on publishing editions and translations of its contents. The latest digitization effort for the manuscript was undertaken by the <a href="/facts/Ethio-SPaRe/oU9xKPzV">Ethio-SPaRe</a> project.

Aksumite Collection open-in-new

Aksumite Collection