Garima Gospels

Did you know that there was such a thing as Extreme Bookbinding?

Lester Capon  writes here about a fascinating Preservation Project in Ethiopia.

It began with 8a telephone call one Thursday morning in May 2006 from James Brockman. The conversation went something like this :- J.B. – "Do you want to work in the Ethiopian mountains on a 6th. century manuscript?" L.C. – " Yes" When, some months later, I was being hoisted up a sheer rock face a stones throw from the Eritrean border, trusting my prolonged existence to an ancient leather strap and an even more ancient monk.

The library at Garima Monastery holds an ancient treasure, an illuminated copy of the Gospels that according to legend, Abbu Garima himself wrote and illuminated on 350 pages on thick goat’s vellum in the Ge’ez language. This tradition has been discounted, and the book taken to be tenth century, until recently.

But now they have been restored and redated to between 330 and 650 which means that they could be the earliest surviving illustrated Christian manuscripts. The current issue of The Art Newspaper (no. 214, June 2010, p.46) carries an article by Martin Bailey about them [not up on the online edition yet] and the Ethiopian Heritage Fund has a piece about them as well.

Picture to right: St Luke

^{Note: as we approach the 400th anniversary year of the Authorized Version in 2011 I expect to see much more material about the Bible in circulation and aim to share the best bits on this blog.}