Demarginalizing Medieval Africa: Images, Texts, and Identity in Early Solomonic Ethiopia (1270-1527)

This project intends to shed new light on the art, history, and culture of the Ethiopian Empire during a period going from the rise of a new dynasty which claimed to descend from the biblical King Solomon in 1270 to its near collapse in 1527. The colourful hieratic images that decorate Ethiopic manuscripts produced during this time span - conventionally known as the early Solomonic period (1270-1527) - are unlike anything else produced in sub-Saharan Africa and embody the spiritual aspirations and cultural identity of the artists who made them.

The Ethiopian Empire was the longest-lived empire in Africa after that of Ancient Egypt. However, while there have been thousands of publications on the arts of Ancient Egypt, the visual culture of Ethiopia continues to be marginalized and misinterpreted. Most survey books of medieval art and manuscript illumination overlook the evidence afforded by the tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Likewise, many survey books of African art disassociate the heritage of Ethiopia from the rest of the continent. Ethiopian art thus remains unjustly at the periphery of academic discourse about African and medieval art, and at the fringes of debates about medievalism and orientalism, while the work of Ethiopian artists continues to be inappropriately looked at to identify a succession of foreign "influences" from non-African contexts rather than to understand the cultural, religious, and socio-political significance of their activities.

It is high time for an approach that pays attention to the representational intentions of Ethiopian artists. By looking at the illustrations in medieval Ethiopic manuscripts, focusing especially on hitherto neglected examples in collections in Germany and the UK, this project will transform our understanding of this material through a range of ground-breaking publications and activities that will reconstruct the vibrant cultural and religious history of the Ethiopian Empire. An analysis of the interrelationship between text and image in Ethiopian manuscript will further our understanding of the activities and concerns of Ethiopian illustrators and scribes. The project will also consider manuscripts that shed light on the life and devotional activities of Christian Ethiopians and that illuminate the relations between the Ethiopian Church and the other Oriental Orthodox Churches of Egypt, Syria, and Armenia. By publishing and disseminating this material widely - exposing and critiquing the Eurocentric theoretical approaches that shaped the founding of the field and inform it still - the project will produce research on medieval illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts that pays attention to the socio-cultural background which determined their production, ensuring that the artistic heritage of Ethiopia receives the consideration it deserves.