Ethiopian Prayerbook.

Item Number: 108637

Ethiopia:, C. 18th Century.

Wonderfully illustrated Ethiopian Coptic Ge’ez prayerbook. Small octavo, original wooden boards, parchment manuscript of 176 leaves on vellum, late-18th century. Written in Ethiopic Ge’ez script in two columns, in black ink with some words or letters in red (with 3 pages of text on blank pages at beginning and end in another less formal hand). With 9 full-page hand-painted miniatures in colors on 8 leaves depicting Biblical scenes from the Old and New Testaments. In very good condition.

Ethiopian Handwritten Coptic Ge’ez Bibles were produced as early as the fourteenth century until the late 19th century throughout Ethiopia, the first country to become an independent African nation. Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia in the 4th century when Syrian missionaries first translated the Bible into Ge’ez, the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The surviving body of Ge’ez literature in composed almost entirely of Christian liturgy, as education was exclusively the responsibility of priests and monks. The bibles produced typically contain the gospels of the New Testament, recounting the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the foundation of the Christian faith with illuminated miniature paintings depicting the lives of the Saints.