Washington D.C., Dec 31, 2017 / 03:01 am
With a gift of more than 600 handmade leather manuscripts earlier this year, The Catholic University of America is now home to one of the most important collections of Ethiopian religious manuscripts in the United States.
The collection includes Christian, Islamic, and "magic" texts. It is the largest collection of Ethiopian Islamic manuscripts outside of Ethiopia.
Dr. Aaron M. Butts, a Professor of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literature at Catholic University, said in a statement earlier this year that the manuscript collection "provides unparalleled primary sources for the study of Eastern Christianity" and reaffirms the school's standing as one of the leading places to study Near Eastern Christian language, literature, and history.
The manuscripts are handmade of goat, sheep, or calf hides, and most of them date to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.