Codicology of Gondärian Manuscripts (ca. 1650 - 1800)
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-11
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU
Abstract
Ethiopia is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of its manuscript culture since antiquity. Almost all of this culture is recorded on typically known manuscript made from birana (a Ge’ez term for parchment). The manuscripts supposedly produced from ca. 1650-1800 A.D. are the continuations of the manuscript culture that began about two millenniums B.C. However, these manuscripts have not been studied from their codicological aspects. Though these manuscripts have shown impressive origin and historical changes, no serious codicological investigations have been conducted. Nor do they were analyzed in terms of their historical interpretations. This study has the objectives to explicate how codicology is a philological matter and is an integral part of a manuscript culture and to illustrate how the material aspects have impacts on the investigation of the entire codices. In addition, it aimed to explain the predominant codicological features of the Gondärian manuscripts relating them through
vii
philological perspective and to trace back the typical characteristics of the local manuscript culture and their historical evolutions. Mixed research design has been used for cross-referencing of 80 purposefully selected manuscripts. Using ‘textual’ analysis, the manuscripts referred to the Gondärian manuscripts produced at the heydays of the Gondärian period are scrutinized in light of their historical contexts. These 80 manuscripts of varied subject matters have been compared using a descriptive statistics tool. A guideline form, which has 110 items, was developed for the comparative codicology between three periods within the Gondärian period. The use of descriptive statistics is further extended to include the study of material culture that is codicology. Comparisons of these 80 MSS in line with 110 items concretize our knowledge about the indissolubility of codicology, paleography, and text block analysis. The comparative statistics applied in the study of codicology of Gondärian manuscripts gave new insight in the philological analysis that has traditionally been more of a subjective analysis. The qualitative aspect of this study adopted Clifford Geertz’s powerful concept of “thick description” for its descriptive codicology. The findings of this study are successful justifications of how descriptive codicology explained from the philological perspective that accentuate how historical context and locational variations matter in the construction of meanings and the resultant interpretations. Data beyond the content of the “text” have been used for historical justifications and manuscript based identity constructions. The ‘textual’ analysis on the codicological features of the Gondärian manuscripts revealed that there were no holes on parchments, a single work of a manuscript only contains a single subject matter, and the flyleaves were added independently from the text block. Moreover, in the Gondärian manuscripts, the size of the wooden board was larger than the parchments’ size and bookmakers tooled ornamental Latin crosses on the covers of the manuscripts. Relatively speaking, these codicological features are found peculiar in the Gondärian manuscripts. Cognizant of these points, this study of codicology of Gondärian manuscripts can give new insights to investigate the complexity of codicology and its inseparability from philology by emphasizing the close relationship between bookmaker, text block, context, and users of the manuscripts.
Description
Keywords
The manuscripts supposedly produced from ca. 1650-1800 A.D.