The fourth edition of the “Archaeo-Oriental Studies” competition for research projects combining Oriental Studies and archaeology has been resolved. Dr. Dorota Dzierzbicka (PCMA UW) and Dr. Daria Elagina (University of Hamburg / University of Münster) have been awarded a grant for research on Ethiopian manuscripts.
Their project: “Paper Trails. Identification of Watermarks on the Paper of Ethiopian Manuscripts from the Collection of the Church of Santo Stefano dei Mori in the Vatican City” aims to implement interdisciplinary research on 15th–16th century Ethiopian manuscript culture from a material perspective (the study of watermarks on paper) in the context of interregional commerce and social interconnections between Europe, the East, and Africa. As such, the study envisions research on artefacts and texts using the perspectives and methodologies of both archaeology and Ethiopian Studies for a holistic approach.
The project stems from Dzierzbicka and Elagina’s study of a colophon to an Ethiopian text dated to 1596 and preserved in manuscript Vat.Et.44, now at the Vatican. Its author had set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Ethiopia through Old Dongola, Sudan. Vat.Et.44 came to the Vatican from the church of S. Stefano dei Mori, which in the XV–XVI c. housed an Ethiopian community and a library of dozens of volumes. The first investigation of the paper of Vat.Et.44, undertaken to learn if it was written already in Italy or somewhere on the way from Sudan, has shown Italian watermarks. However, Italian paper was widely traded to the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Very little is known about the paper of Ethiopian manuscripts, ordinarily written on parchment, and no research has been done on the materiality of the S. Stefano library. The project aims to conduct initial research on all of its 43 paper manuscripts (38 in Rome, 4 in Milan and 1 in Florence), locating watermarks and acquiring their photographs.