Join us as we welcome Amsalu Tefera (Ph.D., Philology, Addis Ababa University; Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Florence [Italy]) to learn about an important Ethiopic manuscript housed in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives.

A Praise for the Threefold Virgin: An Illuminated 16th-century Ethiopic Manuscript Housed at Miami University

Arganone Mariam (‘Organ of Mary’) is a prayer book authored by the known Ethiopian church scholar named Abba Giyorgis of Gasicha (1365-1425). The text is written in Ge‘ez (Classical Ethiopic), glorifying St. Mary–the Mother of Jesus–and frequently mentions her name in Hebrew equivalent ማሪሃም (Mariham), “a Sweet name.” It is one of the best sources for Mariology in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and impacted the field of Ethiopian Studies. Miami’s Special Collections holds one of the earliest copies of this manuscript. The lecture aims to address the current knowledge on the text–Arganone Mariam–and to briefly discuss the manuscript housed at Miami University, which will be on display for the event.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Religion