What are the major manuscript sources for Geʽez texts of the Ethiopian canon and where are they held?
Executive summary
The principal manuscript witnesses for Geʽez texts of the Ethiopian canon survive both inside Ethiopia—chiefly in monastery libraries and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies—and across a network of foreign repositories that collected or microfilmed Ethiopian codices during the 19th–20th centuries; major outside holdings include Princeton, HMML, the British Library, Cambridge, Yale/Beinecke, Manchester, Duke and several museum collections [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Important named witnesses cited in scholarship include the Abba Garima Gospels still at Abba Garima monastery and very early Old Testament codices now in HMML’s archives, while canonical lists survive in Geʽez works such as the Sinodos and Fetha Nägäst found in multiple collections [1] [3] [6].
1. Monasteries and parish libraries inside Ethiopia: the living first-line archives
Monasteries and churches across Ethiopia remain primary custodians of Geʽez canonical texts, many still produced and used liturgically; collections in situ provide the broadest chronological spread of manuscripts and include whole libraries that supplied later external collectors and digitisation projects [1] [7] [4]. Field projects and local repositories—like monastic libraries in Tigray (Gunda Gunde photographed) and Abba Garima Monastery—hold early illuminated gospel books (the Garima Gospels) and numerous Old Testament witnesses that are central to studies of the Ethiopian canon [1] [3].
2. Institute of Ethiopian Studies and Ethiopian university repositories: national aggregators and digitisation hubs
The Institute of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University is described as the major national custodian, with manuscript holdings drawn from churches, monasteries, mosques, public libraries and private collections and targeted for digitisation under projects such as EAP286; master and backup image sets are deposited at the British Library and HMML for preservation [4]. The IES collection is explicitly framed as facilitating primary research into Geʽez literary history and contains extensive Geʽez manuscripts representing the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition [4].
3. Major Western repositories holding large or significant Ethiopic collections
Princeton University Library houses one of the largest Ethiopic manuscript collections outside Ethiopia—nearly 180 codices and more than 500 magic scrolls—built from 20th‑century donations and earlier expeditions (Garrett, Littmann) with catalogues and digitised finding aids available [2] [8] [9]. HMML (Hill Museum & Manuscript Library) maintains the world’s richest microfilm/digital archive for Ethiopian manuscripts and has identified pre‑Solomonic and otherwise very early Geʽez codices within its holdings (EMML numbers cited) [3]. Cambridge, the British Library (via EAP deposit), the Chester Beatty Library, Yale/Beinecke, Manchester John Rylands and various US university libraries (Duke, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rubenstein at Duke) also preserve important Ethiopic codices, gospel books, psalters and legal texts like Fetha Nägäst collected in the 19th and 20th centuries [1] [10] [5] [11] [12] [13].
4. Key manuscripts cited by scholars and where they sit
The Abba Garima Gospels—often framed as the earliest surviving illuminated Christian codices in the region—remain at Abba Garima monastery and are repeatedly referenced as a primary witness [1]. HMML’s catalogues include EMML 6977 (pre‑Solomonic Old Testament parts) and EMML 9001 (the oldest major Geʽez codex of the Old Testament containing Jubilees), demonstrating that critical Old Testament witnesses reside in HMML’s microfilm/digital archive [3]. The Sinodos and Fetha Nägäst are principal Geʽez sources for canonical lists and are attested in multiple manuscript compilations across repositories [6] [1].
5. How these collections were formed, and implications for textual study
Many Western collections are products of 19th–20th century collecting, auctions and expeditions—names like Garrett, Littmann, Crawford and later donors recur—so the distribution of Geʽez witnesses reflects that history as much as original liturgical geography [2] [13] [1]. Digitisation and microfilming (HMML, EAP projects, institutional digitisation) have reshaped access and allowed scholars to identify early codices in remote collections, but provenance gaps and the constructed nature of some Western “collections” remain important caveats for reconstructing textual transmission [3] [12] [4].
6. Limits of the record and what remains to be done
Existing reporting documents major institutional holdings and several headline manuscripts, but it does not provide a complete census of every canonical Geʽez witness or full provenance chains; further in‑country cataloguing, continued digitisation and transparent provenance scholarship—especially for manuscripts moved in the colonial and early modern eras—are evident next steps for robust canonical studies [2] [4] [8].