Pankhurst’s Corner continues this week on the theme of heritage preservation, highlighting the nation’s precious trove of rare manuscripts. The professor illuminates us on efforts underway in various initiatives, to maintain and establish the repositories of Ethiopian antiquity.
Manuscripts form an important part of Ethiopia’s heritage. – a heritage which has suffered greatly from depredation by foreigners.
Ethiopia’s heritage suffered greatly as a result of the looting by the British of Emperor Tewodros’ capital at Maqdala in 1868. The entire church collection of around a thousand volumes was seized. Some four hundred were carried off to Britain, while the residue was dissipated among lesser churches on the British route to the coast.
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Other booty taken by the British included two royal crowns; the imperial seal; processional crosses; tabots, or movable altars; church paraphernalia; jewelry, weapons and clothing; large marquee-type tents – and the icon of the Qwer’ata Re’su, or Christ with the Crown of Thorns, which Ethiopian rulers had for centuries taken with them on campaign.
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Tewodros’s successor Emperor Yohannes IV, appealed for the painting’s repatriation to Ethiopia, but was tinformed that Queen Victoria did “not believe” that it had been taken to England – though it was in fact at that time in the private possession of her Librarian at Windsor Castle, Sir Richard Holmes.
The looting of Maqdala is currently condemned in Ethiopia by AFROMET, the Association for the Return of Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures. It demands repatriation of the looted articles. This has resulted in the return of Tewodros’s amulet, and sundry manuscripts and weapons by private individuals – but not, as yet, by any major British museums or libraries. The National Museum of Kenya has however presented its Ethiopian counterpart with one of Tewodros’s remarkably fine shields.
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The French Dakar-Djibouti mission of the early 1930s later played a highly questionable role, as Anaïs Wyon has shown, when it persuaded Ethiopian priests in the Gondar area to exchange their historic wall paintings for more colourful works which the mission had produced for this fraudulent purpose. Fearing that the presence of a tabot in their baggage might arouse suspicion they promptly burnt it.
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Considerable illegal export of Ethiopian manuscripts nevertheless took place in the late 1960s and early1970s. Dishonest persons are known to have taken genuine old manuscripts, whitened out some of their pages – thus ruining these antiquities, and filling the whitened pages with attractive paintings. These, when assumed to be authentic, greatly increased the manuscript’s value.
Over twenty such fabricated “antiques”- examples of which are on deposit at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies – were exported to England, with the help of cleverly-executed fake export permits: Fake permits to export fake manuscripts!
Such dishonest trickery seems to have now been brought to an endand the illegal export several years ago of a medieval Lalibela cross was detected in Belgium – and led, through police action, to the cross’s repatriation.
There is however reason to suppose that the illegal export of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage is still going on: the country’s frontiers are wide, and smuggling not so difficult.
A related problem arises from the fact that some Ethiopian churchmen are currently attracted by the high prices offered for crosses and other historic treasures, and are disposing of the latter to dealers linked to the tourist trade.
Such sales, it should be emphasised, are not necessarily either illegal or immoral, for antiquity-owners, be they private individuals or institutions, would seem to have the right to sell their property – especially when facing major financial or other difficulties.
Such articles should however be acquired, wherever possible, by reputable museums, ecclesiastical or lay.
Ethiopia’s manuscript heritage should be preserved also by microfilming of important or rare works. This was done in the past by various individuals and organizations, most notably UNESCO, Professor Ernst Hammerschmidt, of Hamburg, and by the EMML or Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, in Collegeville, Minnesota.
It is highly regrettable that EMML microfilming in Ethiopia came to an end at the time of the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 – and has not been resumed. No organization has emerged to fill the gap produced by EMML’s disappearance.
It would seem highly imperative that manuscript microfilming be recommenced – and that it be extended to include Islamic manuscripts (which were never included in EMML’s work).
Islamic manuscripts, I would recall, are for the most part written on paper (unlike Ge’ez manuscripts, which are mainly on parchment) – Islamic manuscripts are therefore of particular need of protection).
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So far we have been considering Ethiopia’s material culture. A word must be added about the country’s literary heritage. Ethiopians have developed a particularly rich store of folklore, proverbs, poetry, folktales, children’s stories and the like. Not a few ordinary conversations will make reference to traditional sayings. Much such material has been collected, and published, by individual scholars, many of them Italians, such as Guidi, Conti Rossini, Cerulli and Moreno – but much more work, including institutional research, in this area is required if valuable linguistic an literary traditions are not to be lost.
One should also consider the systematic recording of Ge’ez qene, or ecclesiastical poetry – as Menghestu Lemma and th epresent writer once did at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies with our serial publication Qene Collections – and as Alemayehu Moges carried out briefly, but most usefully, in Gojjam. We need another Alemayahu Moges!
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The overwhelming importance of oral history must likewise be recognized. Lip service to this historical source is not sufficient – real systematic action must be undertaken – before this vast storehouse of knowledge is lost for ever. And results must be published for all to see, and study.
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Ethiopia’s traditional culture has been recorded, studied and discussed over the centuries by scholars from many lands – whose writings deserve our attention. On the bibliographic side we are greatly dependent on Hans Lockot’s bibliography of works on Ethiopia in German (1982) – I may add that the Institute of Ethiopian Studies appeals to Germany for microfilm copies of such German works.
We are all no less indebted to Professor Ulich for publishing Lockot’s corresponding bibliography of work on English (1998).
These two bibliographic publications pose a manifest challenge to other scholars, particularly to Italian and French scholars to produce similar bibliographies for works on Ethiopia in their own languages.
The above paragraph is thus an appeal to Italy and France to help in the production of bibliographies of vital importance not only for Ethiopian studies, but also for an understanding of Italian and French scholarship.
We also need similar bibliographies for works in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin, as well as East European countries and Arabic. Such works are however available for Russian and Hebrew.
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It goes without saying that the new Hamburg-based Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, will be a major source for the investigation of Ethiopia’s historic culture – as of so much else.
Volume 3, out of 5 volumes will be published in a matter of days – and we should soon be considering how to produce an Amharic translation,
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In conclusion, returning to the main focus of this and the previous article I would suggest that the Ethiopian heritage picture is not as dark as might at first appear.
The later inhabitants of such great civilizations, as Egypt, Greece and Rome, lost interest in their historic heritage – but later re-found it. Ethiopia followed – and id following – a similar path. The glory of ancient Aksum and Gondar was for many centuries forgotten by later inhabitants of those towns.
But things are changing – and have changed. Ethiopians in recent years have become increasingly aware – and proud – of their heritage. They now have a Ministry of Culture – never existing in the past – expressly committed to the preservation of their heritage. It is unthinkable that a group of foreign scholars will ever come into the country and bamboozle the priests to part with their treasures.
Numerous efforts are likewise being made, by Addis Wubet and others, to preserve historic buildings and other antiquities; as well as to set up museums, both religious and lay, and to demand the restitution of looted property.
In this regard the Aksum obelisk returned from Rome will soon be re-erected – demonstrating that loot can be regained – if demanded with sufficient resolve.
The dawn of Ethiopia’s new Millennium, we may conclude, has opened the way for a new era in the annals of the country’s heritage, and hopefully will inspire Ethiopia’s sons and daughters to struggle with increasing determination for its preservation.
Ending on a matter I have had occasion to write in the past I would report that the long-planned project. sponsored by SOFIES, the Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (join it today if you are not already a member!) to establish a New Library for the Institute of Ethiopian
Studies library is at long last advancing toward fruition – we are led to believe that the beginning of construction is imminent.
The Library is and will be the world’s centre of Ethiopian studies.
Our task must be now to ensure that this fine New Building, designed by Fasil Ghiorgis, which will soon be rising before our eyes, is properly stocked. The Library’s objective now, as in the past, is to hold all publications produced in the country, about the country, or by nationals of the country.
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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