✖Here you can explore some general information about the project. See also Beta maṣāḥəft institutional web page. Select About to meet the project team and our partners. Visit the
Guidelines section to learn about our encoding principles. The section Data contains the Linked Open Data information, and API the Application Programming Interface documentation for those who want to exchange data with the Beta maṣāḥǝft project. The Permalinks section documents the versioning and referencing earlier versions of each record.
Click to get back to the home page.
Here you can find out more about the project team,
the cooperating projects,
and the contact information. You can also visit
our institutional page.
Find out more about our Encoding Guidelines.
In this section our Linked Open Data principles are explained.
Developers can find our Application Programming Interface documentation here.
The page documents the use of permalinks by the project.
✖Descriptions of (predominantly) Christian
manuscripts from Ethiopia and Eritrea are the core of the Beta maṣāḥǝft project.
We (1) gradually encode descriptions from printed catalogues, beginning
from the historical ones,
(2) incorporate digital descriptions produced by other projects, adjusting
them wherever possible,
and (3) produce descriptions of previously unknown and/or uncatalogued
manuscripts.
The encoding follows the TEI XML standards (check our
guidelines).
Here you can browse a full list of manuscripts available on the platform,
arranged by repositories and shelf marks (clicking on the "show list" button will expand the list for each location).
This menu takes you to the search form listing all manuscripts encoded
by the project. On the left side you get filters based on the indexes for
that type of resources in the database, on the right side you will see your search results in a multi-page table (20 per page). You can refine the results by applying the filters.
Here you can view a list of manuscripts that have digitized images available online elsewhere.
The list of manuscript catalogues that were used as sources for our records.
Clicking on one of the titles will open a list view with all the
manuscripts in that catalogue
that have been encoded.
Inscriptions
are an inseparable part of the manuscript tradition and its direct precursors,
therefore we also offer the encoding of the known inscriptions from Ethiopia and
Eritrea
wherever possible. Part of the encoding is carried out in Hamburg, part is
the result of
cooperation with other projects, such as
DASI: Digital Archive for the Study of pre-islamic
Arabian Inscriptions.
✖We identify each unit of content in every manuscript. We consider any
text with an independent circulation a work, with its own identification number within
the Clavis Aethiopica (CAe). Parts of texts (e.g. chapters)
without independent circulation (univocally identifiable by IDs assigned within the records) or recurrent
motifs as well as documentary additional texts
(identified as Narrative Units)
are not part of the CAe. You can also check the list of different types of
text titles or various Indexes
available from the top menu.
The clavis is a repertory of all known works relevant for the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition; the work being defined as any text with an independent circulation.
Each work (as well as known recensions where applicable) receives a unique identifier in the Clavis Aethiopica (CAe).
In the filter search offered here one can search for a work by its title, a keyword, a short quotation, but also directly by its
CAe identifier - or, wherever known and provided, identifier used
by other claves, including Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG),
Clavis Patrum Graecorum (CPG), Clavis Coptica (CC),
Clavis Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti (CAVT), Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (CANT), etc.
The project additionally identifies Narrative Units to refer to text types, where no clavis identification is possible or necessary. Recurring motifs or also frequently documentary
additiones are assigned a Narrative Unit ID, or thematically clearly demarkated passages
from various recensions of a larger work.
This list view shows the documentary collections encoded by the project Ethiopian Manuscript Archives (EMA) and its successor EthioChrisProcess - Christianization and religious interactions in Ethiopia (6th-13th century) : comparative approaches with Nubia and Egypt, which aim to edit the corpus of administrative acts
of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, for medieval and modern periods.
See also the list of documents contained in the additiones in the manuscripts described by the Beta maṣāḥǝft project .
Works of interest to Ethiopian and Eritrean studies.
✖While encoding manuscripts, the project Beta maṣāḥǝft aims at creating an
exhaustive repertory of art themes and techniques present in Ethiopian
and Eritrean Christian tradition. See our
encoding guidelines for details.
Two types of searches for aspects of manuscript decoration are possible,
the decorations filtered search and the general keyword search.
The filtered search for decorations, originally designed with Jacopo Gnisci,
looks at decorations and their features only. The filters on the left are relative
only to the selected features, reading the legends will help you to figure out
what you can filter. For example you can search for all encoded decorations of a specific art
theme, or search the encoded legends. If the decorations are present, but not encoded, you
will not get them in the results. If an image is available, you will also find a thumbnail linking
to the image viewer. [NB: The Index of Decorations currently often times out, we are sorry for the inconvenience.]
You can search for particular motifs or aspects, including style, also through the keyword search. Just click on "Art keywords" and "Art themes" on the left to browse through the options.
This is a short cut to a search for all those manuscripts which have miniatures of which we
have images.
✖We create metadata for all places associated with the manuscript production and
circulation as well as those mentioned in the texts used by the project.
The encoding of places in Beta maṣāḥǝft will thus result in a
Gazetteer of the Ethiopian tradition. We follow the principles established by
Pleiades and lined out in the
Syriaca.org TEI
Manual and Schema for Historical Geography which allow us to distinguish
between places, locations, and names of places.
See also Help page fore more guidance.
This tab offers a filtrable list of all available places.
Geographical references of the type "land inhabited by people XXX"
is encoded with the reference to the corresponding Ethnic unit (see below);
ethnonyms, even those used in geographical contexts, do not appear in this list.
Repositories are those locations where manuscripts encoded by the project are or
used to be preserved. While they
are encoded in the same way as all places are, the view offered is different,
showing a list of manuscripts associated with the repository.
✖We create metadata for all persons (and groups of persons) associated with the
manuscript production and circulation (rulers, religious authorities, scribes,
donors, and commissioners) as well as those mentioned in the texts used by the
project. The result will be a
comprehensive Prosopography of the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition.
See also Help page for
more guidance.
We encode persons according to our
Encoding Guidelines.
The initial list was
inherited from the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica,
and there are still many inconsistencies that we are trying to gradually fix.
We consider ethnonyms as a subcategory of personal names, even when
many are often used in literary works in the context of the
"land inhabited by **". The present list of records has been mostly
inherited from the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica,
and there are still many inconsistencies that we are trying to gradually fix.
✖This section collects some additional resources offered by the project. Select Bibliography to explore the references cited in the project records. The
Indexes list different types of project records (persons, places, titles, keywords, etc).
Visit Projects for information on partners that have input data
directly in the Beta maṣāḥǝft database. Special ways of exploring the data are offered under
Visualizations.
Two applications were developed in cooperation with the project
TraCES,
the Gǝʿǝz Morphological Parser and the
Online Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae.
Here you can view all references (extracted from Zotero) that have been cited in project records.
The Indexes list different types of project records (persons, places, titles, keywords, etc).
These associated projects have fed their data directly in the
Beta maṣāḥǝft database.
Check some special ways of exploring our data, including comparing manuscripts containing the same work,
mapping manuscripts with a given content, collating passages, searching for gender aspects, and many more.
The experimental morphological parser was developed in cooperation with the project
TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
This application uses basic techniques to display data from the digitization process of the
Lexicon Linguae Aethiopicae by August Dillmann, with additions by the
team of the project TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in
Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
This parchment codex
is composed of 134 leaves.
It has 19 main content units in 1 codicological unit.
Available dates of origin in the description: 19th to 20th century (dating on palaeographic grounds). There are
The description includes a collation of the quires.
This paper codex
is composed of 206 leaves.
It has 21 main content units in 2 codicological units.
Available dates of origin in the description: XVI c.. There are
The description includes a collation of the quires.
The Mazmura Dāwit, the Biblical Psalms attributed to David, usually circulates in the Ethiopic
manuscript tradition as the first part of the
, followed by the ,
and .
This parchment codex
is composed of 227 leaves.
It has 33 main content units in 1 codicological unit.
There is 1 hand described with Ethiopic script attested.
The description includes a collation of the quires.
This paper codex
is composed of leaves.
It has 5 main content units in 1 codicological unit.
Available dates of origin in the description: 1844-48.
The description does not include a collation of the quires.
This parchment codex
is composed of 239 leaves.
It has 12 main content units in 2 codicological units.
Available dates of origin in the description: Palaeographic analysis indicates that the manuscript
dates from the late 14th or early 15th century. This dating is supported by an addition (a2) of codicological unit 1 , which
has 1412 when: 1412 as date for this addition. However this early dating of the manuscript is contradicted by a scribal
supplication in (a54) of codicological unit 2 , which dates the manuscript to the mid-16th century, but which is at odds with another scribal
supplication in (a4) of codicological unit 1 and is most likely a supplication referring to another codex on a folio, which was
added later to the codex in a rebinding. This view is supported by (a59) of codicological unit 2 in the same quire, that contains
a reference to the Mäṣḥafä milad , that is not included in this volume. (internal-date). There is 1 hand described with Ethiopic script attested.
The description does not include a collation of the quires.
Map of the witnesses of Mazmura Dāwit, at their current location.
For each textual unit a different color of dots is given (i.e. a different KML file is loaded).
For each manuscript containing the selected textual units the point is placed at the current repository or at the place of origin according
to the selection. The default is the current repository.
If place of origin is selected and for the manuscript this information is not available (e.g. in cases where
this corresponds in fact to the current repository), the point will be made on the repository which is always available.
The dates given for each manuscript correspond to the most inclusive range possible from the origin dates given in the manuscript.
If a manuscript has a part from exactly 1550 and one dated 1789 to 1848, then the time span will be 1550 - 1848.
