Fragility and Resilience: Church History and Myth in Nineteenth-Century Ethiopia

The growth of a myth of ancient origins pertaining to the church and monastery of Märṭulä Maryam and the exploration of its content and context form the central focus of this study. Material related to the church’s apparent ancient origin provides appropriate data through which to illustrate at once the themes of historical fragility and resilience. Märṭulä Maryam consolidated its mythical history by suppressing the memory of its actual founder, thus altering the tradition of the church itself. This study will demonstrate that efforts to completely erase the memory of Märṭulä Maryam’s founder and its original history were wholly in vain. Such acts of suppression inevitably leave indelible traces of the true past, not to mention the fact that its actual history is well secured within the records of other Ethiopian churches, as well as in those of Märṭulä Maryam itself.

A Rock-Hewn Yǝmrǝḥannä Krǝstos? An Investigation into Possible ‘Northern’ Zagwe Churches near ʿAddigrat, Tǝgray

Rulers of the short-lived Zagwe dynasty have long been lauded for their role as builderkings, producing several churches in the Lalibäla complex in Lasta in addition to the nearby church of Yǝmrǝḥannä Krǝstos. Despite some textual evidence linking this group to Tǝgray, scholars have not hitherto identified any particularly ‘Zagwe’ buildings therein. This paper proposes that several rock-hewn churches near ʿAddigrat in Tǝgray may be the product of thirteenth-century Zagwe church building. My hypothesis is anchored by my identification of the church of Gwaḥgot Iyäsus as a hewn copy of Yǝmrǝḥannä Krǝstos in both form and measurements. This church, which replicates the dimensions of this famous free-standing church almost exactly, also has wood elements within that were seemingly imported from Lasta. Furthermore, I connect the painted decorations to other churches in the cluster: Maryam Qiʿat and even Maryam Qorqor in Gärʿalta. By expanding our view of the Zagwe dynasty towards Tǝgray, we may better understand this little-known period of Ethiopian history.

In memoriam Rochus Zuurmond (1930–2020)

Obituary

Proverbs in Language Teaching: Using the Example of Let’s Speak Tigrinya (2018)

Proverbs have been used in language teaching for centuries. Nowadays, language learners associate mastery of this traditionally oral genre to a certain level of fluency and regard it as an access key to a deeper understanding of the native speakers’ culture. The recently released Tǝgrǝñña coursebook Let’s Speak Tigrinya (2018) contains almost fifty proverbs, and provides students with an insight into this old and rich tradition. However, owing to the lack of commentary or translation, the paper here seeks to compensate for this deficiency. In comparison with several Tǝgrǝñña proverb collections, it becomes apparent that the expressions listed in the textbook are common in Eritrea as well as in the Tǝgray region, in several alternative variations, some of which have been attested to in earlier European research works. A few examples even have an Amharic equivalent. The proverbs focused on here cover a wide range of both grammatical and everyday life topics and should be implemented in a more effective manner than the textbook provides. However, due to the lack of translations and occasional misprints, their accessibility is radically reduced and of little use for the individual language learner unassisted by a classroom situation.

The Semantics of Locative Adpositions in Amharic

This paper intends to describe the semantics of locative adpositions in Amharic, a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. The analysis is based on elicited data that were collected by using Bowerman and Pederson’s (1992) topological relations picture series. The study shows that Amharic locative adpositions can convey specific and generic topological relations between the figure and ground entities. The specific locatives show a specific type of topological relations (for instance, verticality as in tatʃtʃ, below’, ‘under’; horizontality as in fit, ‘front’; containment as in wɨst’, ‘in’) between the figure and ground entities, but not the generic locatives. Aside from which, I argue that Amharic does not fit into Ameka and Levinson’s (2007) typology of locative predicates and constitutes a type of its own because it uses two copulas and a locative verb.

The Great Aksumite Decorated Stelae: Architectural Characteristics, Functions, and Meanings

The article presents a review of the architectural and iconographic features of the big decorated Aksumite stelae in the May Ḥǝǧǧa stelae field at Aksum. Their location in the urban setting of ancient Aksum is scrutinized alongside their ceremonial and ideological function. The origin and meaning of the different features and decorative patterns characterizing the stelae are focused upon. It is suggested that these attributes may reflect ideological traits regarded as crucial by the Askumite kings and the elite in the first centuries CE. Moreover, it is demonstrated how some of these features are rooted in the local traditions, while others are related to the intense interactions the ancient Aksum had with neighbouring regions, such as the Mediterranean area and South Arabia. In particular, a new interpretation is proposed for the very distinctive outline of the top of the monuments: it may have been shaped after a specific type of shield also occurring in Meroitic and Post-Meroitic Nubia. Finally, it is suggested that the role these monuments may have played in ceremonies aimed at shaping the Aksumite identity.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

A Contextual Reading of Ethiopian Crosses through Form and Ritual

Maria Evangelatou’s book promises to explore new research questions and challenge Eurocentric approaches to Ethiopian crosses by presenting an analysis of their use and significance among the Christian orthodox population of Ethiopia. Unfortunately, the study fails to deliver on this promise due to a lack of direct engagement with Ethiopian voices and the relevant literature, and a reliance on publications that focus on noncontemporary or non-Ethiopian contexts. This lack of engagement with Christian Ethiopians leads to significant misinterpretations. Moreover, by adopting an approach to Ethiopian sources that fails to recognize the existence of significant shifts within the Ethiopian literary tradition, the author flattens Ethiopia’s historical dimension, and thus unintentionally reproduces the kind of Eurocentric representation of the country that she set out to challenge.

Getatchew Haile, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s Tradition on the Holy Cross

Book Review

Words that Burn: On the Manners and Implications of Oath-Taking Practices in Ethiopian Amhara Customary Law, Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries

Between the spoken word, ritual action, and legal processes, the studies of oath-taking practices have developed a broad literature. This article provides an additional layer of materials and analysis on speech acts and ritual procedures involved in the manners of taking an oath in the Christian societies of Ethiopia, as recorded from the midnineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Some samples of Amharic discourse specific to the manners of oath-taking in the customary legal system of Christian Ethiopia are presented here through extracts from unpublished field notes recorded in the 1840s by the French traveller Arnauld d’Abbadie. This source is then compared to other ethnographic observations of oath-taking statements and rituals in the context of Ethiopian Christian societies. The implications of swearing an oath in Ethiopian customary law lead to the critical re-examination of the history of Ethiopian law in a comparative outlook, particularly with the canonical laws of Eastern and Western Europe.