Catalogue of the Ethiopic Imaging Project: Volume 1: Codices 1-105, Magic Scrolls 1-134 [Paperback]

This is a catalogue of the digital collection of images produced from the first two hundred and thirty nine Ethiopic manuscripts digitised by the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP). These include 105 codices and 134 scrolls of Ethiopian spiritual healing. The codices include gospels and other scriptural texts, liturgies, missals, psalters, hymns and commentaries. Each catalogue entry is laid out in seven sections:


1. Number, name and title

2. Physical description and date (including descriptions of cases and covers)

3. List of contents

4. List of miniatures and illuminations

5. Varia

6. Notes

7. Quire maps


The scrolls of spiritual healing contain prayers against diseases and natural disasters, such as epidemics and drought, and against the evil spirits that are believed to cause them. Many of the scrolls concern conditions suffered by women, such as menstruation, miscarriage and infertility. Each catalogue entry contains five elements:


1. Number, name and title

2. Physical description and date (including descriptions of cases and covers)

3. List of contents

4. List of miniatures and illuminations

5. Name of the owner


A particular focus of interest of the Project is on the scribal techniques and practices in evidence within the manuscripts, and this has been emphasised in the catalogue descriptions.

Along with its companion volume Ethiopian Scribal Practice 1, which includes colour images of all the codices listed, this catalogue provides an invaluable research tool for scholars and students in Ethiopian Studies. The manuscripts catalogued here constitute a resource for a wide range of studies, such as the exploration of developments of scribal and artistic practice across time, or the interconnections between common elements in manuscripts, scribal practices, scribal education, and community ideology.

"‘...the catalogue and the companion volume mark an important step towards the establishing of a better standard of Ethiopic codicology, where quantitative evaluation comes to play a more central role...’"
Alessandro Bausi
Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (13 (2010))