Manuscript Migration: The Multiple Lives of the Rubenstein Library's Collections
The Public and Private Lives of Ethiopic Manuscripts
Duke’s Ethiopic Collection of 112 objects (47 magic scrolls, 5 amulets, 2 icons, and 58 codices) documents the ecclesial, monastic, and everyday devotional practices of Ethiopian Christians. This collection, one of the largest in North America, represents both public (official) and private (personal) aspects of Ethiopian Christianity from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The manuscripts are written in ancient Ethiopic (Ge‘ez), the official liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahïdo Church. Selected manuscripts show how later users and owners adapted or even altered the manuscripts as evident through the bindings, insignia, marginalia, book plates, and other features found found on the covers and folios. This collection highlights the unique role of Ethiopian Christianity for religious studies, biblical interpretation, material culture, and the migration of manuscripts from their original contexts to places around the world.
The first 29 Ethiopic Manuscripts were cataloged by William F. Macomber in June 1979. He was hired by Duke University Libraries due to his involvement with the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML) housed at Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St. John’s University, Collegeville Minnesota. An unpublished catalog of the remaining Ethiopic Manuscripts (30- 112), generated by Lucas Van Rampay and Aaron Butts in 2008, is still in progress.
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Gay Byron, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Howard University, studied the Ethiopian Manuscript Collection as a Duke Humanities Unbounded Visiting Faculty Fellow in 2021-2022 and continues her research and publications in Ethiopic Manuscripts.
Brogan Hannon, Doctoral Student in the Religion Department, Duke University, assisted Gay Byron in researching the Ethiopic Manuscripts during the 2021-2023 Manuscript Migration Lab.
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