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Blog archive of Ethiopian/Habesha Talisman art, magic practices, and iconography 🇪🇹💫🇪🇷 Sourcing mostly from the Internet, personal scans of print books, and art/meususm archive collections.

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18th Century

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‘Magic prayers -- 1701-1900 -- manuscripts’

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "African, Oceanic, and Ancient American Art: Recent Acquisitions," May 22-October 28, 2001.The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Africa & Byzantium,"

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misc. scrolls

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misc. scrolls

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2. Orthodox Christianity: ETHIOPIC

‘Easter Sunday, 2024, Orthodox Church From exhibitions at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore in 2023/24 on Ethiopic Art and at the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2023/24 on the links betwee...’

From Walters Art Museum

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‘One of the most beautifully illustrated 18th-century amulet scrolls featuring a rider bearing a lance fighting a horned demon armed with a sword. (Or 12859) With the exception of a few works, magic, medicine, talismans, and divination in Ethiopian manuscripts have received little serious scholarly attention. Research on the subject...’

From British Library

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Northern Highlands däbtära (religious scholar) - Tälsäm or yä barana katab (healing scroll) - Amhara or Tigrinya peoples - The Metropolitan Museum of Art Healing

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18th century

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Ethiopian ‘SATOR’ square

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Ethiopian talisman parchment scroll

19th century

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ethiopian healing scroll

illustrations from an ethiopian talismanic scroll containing the legend of susenyos and various prayers/spells. northern ethiopia, 18th c.

source: Berlin, SBB, Ms. or. quart. 1018, 1

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Fowler Quran: Sura āl-Imran (Q. 3), verses 17. fols 35v-36r. c. 1750-1850. Siyu(?), Pate Island (Kenya). Scribe unknown. Ink on laid paper. Image courtesy of the Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles.

Backlit page of a Qur’an on paper from Harar, Ethiopia. Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, MSS 05330.

Qur’an made in Harar, Ethiopia - source: https://hiddenstories.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/ethiopia-coastal-east-africa/overview

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Textiles pastedown on inner board of Ethiopian Christian manuscript. 

Ethiopian Book Heritage Event 2023

Ethiopian prayerbook and book stand

An 18th-c. Ethiopian Synaxarium (collection of saints’ lives used in liturgy) with painting and a cloth pastedown lining the inner board. Tafari Codex 3, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Manuscript detail of a figure presenting a small book written in Ge’ez.  - source: https://hiddenstories.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/ethiopia-coastal-east-africa/overview