A Glimpse at My Mother’s (Sylvia Pankhurst) Archives

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Ethiopia and the Awakening Africa, 1936-40

This week, and next, I dip into the records relating to Africa in 1936-40, of my mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, who edited “New Times and Ethiopia News” (here abbreviated as N.T. ; E.N.), a pro-Ethiopian, and Anti-Fascist weekly newspaper, at the time.

I present the following excerpts fom her African correspondence, with a minimum of comment.

Introduction

Many European Liberals, Socialists and Democrats, and Anti-Fascists generally, were deeply interested in Ethiopia at the time of the Fascist invasion of the

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethiopian Manuscripts: Bindings and Illustration

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Ethiopian Bookmanship

Ethiopian bookmanship, at least by the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, was highly developed. Manuscripts were often beautifully fashioned, and indeed works of art, and craftsmanship, in their own right.

Parchment, or Vellum

Manuscripts were invariably made of parchment, usually fashioned from cow, sheep or goat skin, but sometimes also of horse hide, which enabled the production of particularly large sheets of vellum. Manuscripts were in many cases strongly bound, and often covered with stout wooden boards, generally made from either the wanza tree(Cordia africana) or the (Olea africana).

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Artistic Developments of the Gondar Period

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The classical, Byzantine, style of Ethiopian art, characteristic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, developed significantly in the seventeenth century. This was the so-called Gondar period, so named after the city of that name, in the north-west of the country, which became the capital of the Ethiopian realm in 1636.

This period, which witnessed the construction of the city’s famous castle-like palaces, and the development of a more urban form of court life, may likewise have seen the expansion, and reorganisation, of scriptoria for the making of manuscripts.

Art as Seen by the Artist

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethiopian Christian Art: Icons, Wall Paintings and Manuscripts

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The Coming of Christianity

Ethiopia was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the Christian faith. Local tradition holds that this conversion occurred as early as at the time of the Apostles. Be that as it may, we know that King Ezana of the Aksumite kingdom, in what is now the northern highlands of Ethiopia, issued coins bearing the Cross of Christ already around 330AD. The Aksum realm was indeed the first in the world to strike money with this device. Ezana also erected several inscriptions, which seem to confirm that the conversion to Christianity took place during or around to the time of his reign.

Ethiopia’s conversion, according to Byzantine author Rufinus, whose account is near contemporary, and apparently worthy of credence, was carried out by

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethiopian-Indian Relations in Ancient and Early Medieval Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Contacts between the lands which became to be known as Ethiopia and India date back to the dawn of history. The two countries, though geographically remote from one another, had largely complimentary economies. Ethiopia was a source of gold, ivory and slaves, all three of them in great demand in India. India by contrast produced cotton and silk, pepper and other spices, all in great demand in Ethiopia, as well as some manufactured articles consumed by the elite.

Trade Winds

Communications between the two countries, or regions, were facilitated by the Trade Winds. These blew, in the summer months, from north to south in the Red

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethio-Indian Trade, and Slaves, in Medieval Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week that Ethiopia imported large quanlities of cotton and silk from India, in ancient and medieval times. Now read on:

Jewels were another costly import from India, destined largely for the richest Ethiopian churches. Emperor Galawdewos’s chronicle states that several places of worship destroyed by the soldiers of the Adal conqueror Ahmad Gragn had been thus decorated with “precious Indian stones”.

Pearl-encrusted thrones from India were yet another costly import. They were imported for several monarchs, among them Emperor Dawit (1314-1411) and Emperor Na’od (1404-1508), who are known to have presented them to the churches of Tadbaba Maryam, in Gaynt, and Zemedu Maryam in Lasta, respectively.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Microfilming of Ethiopian Manuscripts: A Nostalgic View

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Launching the EMML Project

Almost thirty years ago, in what some people like to call the Good Old Days, Dr Walter Harrelson, Dean of the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, visited Ethiopia in search of manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. While in Addis Ababa, he met His Holiness Abuna Theophilus, the then Acting Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who suggested to his American visitor that funds might be sought to microfilm all manuscripts in Ethiopia, thus enabling scholars with varied interests to have access to documentation.

To this end, Abuna Theophilus appointed a committee, chaired by Dr Harrelson, to explore the possibilities of microfilming the manuscripts, and of securing the funds to do so. The First Joint Consultation Meeting for Microfilming Ethiopian Church Manuscripts was accordingly held in Addis Ababa, on April 22-23 1971.

It was in this way, and readers may note that I have been quoting directly from an Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library brochure, that the justly renowned EMML project was launched.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Preservation of Ethiopian Culture

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The Art of Gabre Kristos Desta: an Important Offer that Should be Accepted!

Gabre Kristos Desta, who studied in Germany, was one post-World War II Ethiopia’s best known artists. He was also a prominent teacher at Ethiopia’s School of Fine Arts.

When he died, in Oklahoma, in the United States in 1981, it was his wish that those of his paintings which were still in his possession should be returned to his beloved Ethiopia. That this was his ardent wish I know from my somewhat earlier correspondence with him when, after leaving Ethiopia, he lived in Germany.

Some Forty Paintings

Some forty of his paintings, including several of his finest works, are currently in

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Lives of Ethiopian Saints

by Dr Richard Pankhurst:-

Ethiopia posseses, as we have more than once urged in these pages, a vast historical heritage, which, we would insist, has up to now been insufficiently studied, and exploited.

The Gadl

This week we turn our attention to one particular Ethiopian historical source: the Gadl, or Saint’s Life.

Ethiopia, over the centuries, had numerous holy men (and also a few women!), who lived what were considered holy lives, founded monasteries, and were remembered with affection, devotion and/or admiration by their disciples and followers.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethiopia’s Missing Statues

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Addis Ababa has many missing statues!

Such is our theme for our essay today.

Tewodros

Look, to start with, at Addis Ababa’s Tewodros Square. You drive up Churchill Road, past the Post Office, and the French school, both of them on the right; and you come to Tewodros “square”, or, if you like “circle”, and what do you see? Nothing!

The plan, never implemented, was to erect a statue there in memory of Emperor Tewodros II. A first drawing for the statue was produced by Ethiopian artist Ato Ale Felege Selam, and is still extant, in private posseesion. This drawing can be brought out whenever the Municipal authorities realise the need to beutify, and glorify, the capital.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Traditional Ethiopian Medical Text-Books, and Botanical Gardens

Ethiopia is in many ways remarkable in possessing lands of greatly varying altitude, and hence of widely differing climate. Traditionally the areas of differing altitude in which these lands were situated were known as Qolla, or Lowlands, Dega, or Lands of Considerable Elevation, and Wayna Dega, literally “Grape Highlands”, or lands of intermediary elevation.

Temperature, Rainfall and Climate

Temperature and rainfall also varied very greatly. The country thus included cold mountains, in some places at times covered with snow, and torrid lowlands, some of which constituted some of the hottest places on earth. Great differences in rainfall also occurred, and manifested themselves in desert conditions at one extreme, and tropical jungle at the other.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

How To Lose Your History

By Dr Richard Pankhurst:-

Addis Ababa – Almost thirty years ago, in what some people like to call the Good Old Days, Dr Walter Harrelson, Dean of the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, visited Ethiopia in search of manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

While in Addis Ababa, he met His Holiness Abuna Theophilus, the then Acting Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who suggested to his American visitor that funds might be sought to microfilm all manuscripts in Ethiopia, thus enabling scholars with varied interests to have access to documentation

To this end, Abuna Theophilus appointed a committee, chaired by Dr Harrelson, to explore the possibilities of microfilming the manuscripts, and of securing the funds to do so. The First Joint Consultation Meeting for Microfilming Ethiopian Church Manuscripts was accordingly held in Addis Ababa, on April 22-23 1971.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Temple of Yeha, and its Killer Trees

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We have had occasion in previous articles to draw attention to the sapling trees, and other vegetation, which have been allowed to grow in Ethiopian historic buildings, in many parts of the country, thereby endangering their future existence.

A case in point is the vegetation in and around the historic temple of Yeha, a building discussed, and described at some length, in previous issues of “Addis Tribune” – where allusion has also been made to the question of the trees!

Ethiopia’s Earliest Important Antiquity

Yeha, it will be recalled, is perhaps Ethiopia’s earliest important historical site. Situated some 30 kilometres north of Aksum, the fine structure of the temple dates from the middle of the first millennium BC, or, some believe, as early as around the eighth century BC. Not so far away from the time of the fabled Queen

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Tewodros Receives No Reply from The British Government

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week how Emperor Tewodros, recalling the treaty which Britain had signed with his predecessor, Ras Ali, wrote to Queen Victoria, on 29 October 1862. The British Government, apparently not wishing to become embroiled in Ethiopia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire, however, filed his letter, with the result that no reply of course arrived.

A Letter Unanswered

As time passed and his letter remained unanswered, Tewodros, whose pride in his royal status had earlier been noted by Consul Plowden, became increasingly

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Tewodros, and the Battle of Maqdala, 1868

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

`We saw last week that the British Government, after several years’ inaction, had agreed to Emperor Tewodros’s request to obtain craftsmen for him, but that his renewed detention of the Europeans at his court had led, in the autumn of 1866, to a hardening of the British attitude.

The Emperor’s attempt to pressurise the British Government by imprisoning its functionaries, though up to then surprisingly successful, had miscarried. British policy was now reversed. Rassam’s imprisonment, wrote Merewether on 25 September, 1866 was “so great an outrage and insult” that adherence to the plan of despatching the artisans to Tewodros was no longer possible. The British Government therefore decided that the workmen should still be despatched to Massawa, but not allowed inland until the prisoners were released ,and sent down to the port.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Missionary Craftsmen in Tewodros II reign!

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week that Tewodros, from the very inception of his reign, sought the military unification of the Ethiopian empire. Being, as we saw, in a difficult position to import fire-arms, he soon conceived the ambitious plan of having them cast in Ethiopia itself.

With a view to improving his military equipment he accepted an offer by Samuel Gobat, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, in 1855 to send him a group of young craftsmen from the Chrischona missionary institute near Basle in Switzerland. These “missionary artisans”, as they were called, brought him gifts of religious books, for the most part in Amharic, but as he later acknowledged to his English courtier John Bell, “he would have been more pleased with a box of English gunpowder than, as he said, with books he already possessed”.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Emperor Tewodros II: His Reform Policies

An Essay in Nineteenth Century Ethiopian History. 

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The rise of Kasa, the future Emperor Tewodros II, marked the opening of a new, and, in the light of later events, crucially important, era of Ethiopian history. Most of his attempted reforms were never achieved, but nonetheless charted the course taken in the decades which followed.

Kasa, who was born around 1818, was the son of a chief of Qwara on the western frontier. A distant member of the royal family (rather than a self-made man, as some authorities once thought), he was brought up in a monastery, but later became a free-lance soldier. His courage won him the loyalty of his followers, and enabled him to gain control of Qwara, and assume the title of Dajazmach. Empress

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Lalibala Churches

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst

The largest, noblest, and perhaps historically most interesting, of the Lalibala churches is that of MadhaneAlam, or Saviour of the World. Some scholars believe it may actually have been modelled on the old Church of St Mary of Seyon at Aksum, which was then extant.

Madhane Alam

Madhane Alam, which is no less than 33.5 metres long, 23.5 metres wide, and 11 metres high, is unusual in having an external colonnade of pillars on all four sides. These columns extend from its main plinth to its gabled roof which they support. Like the old St Mary of Seyon, the church has a nave and four isles, and four rows of seven pillars, each carved from the single block of stone which forms

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

King Lalibala and his Monolithic Churches

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Harbe, whose history we considered last week. was succeeded by his brother Lalibala. The best known of the Zagwe rulers he is renowned as a great builder, or, more exactly, excavator of rock-hewn churches.

Lalibala and Legend

Lalibala’s life is enshrined in legend. It is traditionally claimed that he was surrounded, shortly after his birth, by a cloud of bees, whereupon his mother, seized by the spirit of prophecy, cried out, `The bees know that this child will become king!’. He was accordingly named Lalibala, which means, `The bee recognises his sovereignty’.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Medical Developments at the Time of Menilek

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week how rivalry between the European powers in Addis Ababa led, during the reign of Emperor Menilek, to the establishment of clinics, at the Italian, French and British legation. They competed with the Russian hospital, a truly pioneering institution which had been established a few years earlier. Now read on!

Ras Makonnen’s Leprosarium

Foreign medicine also began to make its appearance in the provinces at about the same time. In Harar, to the East, Ras Makonnen was keen on establishing modern medical institutions. In 1901 he gave the French Capuchin missionary Monseigneur Jarosseau land on which to establish Ethiopia’s first modern-style leprosarium.

This institution, which was run entirely by French missionaries, consisted of one large building, made of stone and mud, and 49 traditional style huts. There some twenty-five families, for the most part Oromos, were

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Menilek, Medicine and International relations

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week how foreign medicines gained increasing popularity during the reign of Emperor Yohannes. Now read on!

Menilek

The coming of modern medicine to Ethiopia advanced significantly further during the reign of Menilek, a period of relative peace, when foreign contacts expanded. This period also witnessed the founding of Addis Ababa, and all the modernisation which followed therefrom.

Italian Contacts

Despite Menileks reputed interest in innovation, significant developments in the medical field took place only in the 1880s. They owed much to Menilek’s early ties with the Italians. Several Italian doctors visited Shawa between 1886 and 1889. They included Vincenzo Ragazzi and Leopoldo Traversi, who established themselves at Lat Marefeya in northern Shawa, Cesare Nerazzini, who for a time was stationed in Harar, and Raffaele Alfieri, who travelled to several different parts of the country. These foreign physicians dispensed a variety of medicines, which, according to their compatriot Antonio Cecchi, included emetics and quinine for the treatment of malaria. Italian military cooperation was, however, of but short duration, for it came to an end soon after the Treaty of Wuchale, and Menilek’s dispute with the Italians, which culminated in the historic battle of Adwa, in 1896.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Ethiopia’s Historic Quest for Medicine: a Century and a Half Ago

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week that foreign medicines had long been in great demand in Ethiopia. We saw also that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, such medicines were relatively well known, and relatively much used, at the country’s more important towns, particularly in governing and related circles.

King Sahla Sellase

King Sahla Sellase of Shawa was in particular a great fan of foreign medical treatment. This is fully apparent in the often excessively critical reports of the British envoy, Captain Harris. In May 1842 he reported:

“The King’s attention would appear to be now solely engrossed in amassing medicines. Finding that the stock of calomel [in the palace] had been nearly exhausted in the cure of fifteen hundred syphilitic patients he has sent constantly [to the British Embassy] during the last fortnight to request supplies of every drug contained in the stores, with explanations for use, and expressed much disappointment at learning that the chest contained neither the horn of a serpent, which he believed to possess the most valuable medical virtues, nor any cure for those who go mad from looking at a black dog.”

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Medical Activities in the Early 19th Century Successors, in Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

We saw last week that the rulers and people of Ethiopia had long been interested in foreign medical practice of all kinds. Valuable evidence of this is to be found in the writings of foreign travellers, who were frequently approached by Ethiopians of all classes requiring medical advice or assistance.

Making of Amulets

Two of the visiting foreign travellers approached for cures, in the 1830s, were the French Saint Simonian missionaries Combes and Tamisier. They recall that a young Ethiopian country-woman on one occasion begged them for an amulet to cure her sterility. She was so insistent that, though they did not believe in the efficacy of such “treatment,” they eventually agreed to her request.

Justifying this action they write:

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Medical Activities of James Bruce, and his 19th Century Successors in Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The rulers of Ethiopia, as we saw last week, had long been interested in foreign medicines, and foreign medical practice of all kinds. This was, as we have already suggested, no less apparent in the eighteenth century, at the time of the visit to the country of the famous Scottish traveller James Bruce.

Smallpox Stricken Massawa

Bruce, whose claims of medical prowess must not, I fear, be taken too literally, landed at the Red Sea port of Massawa in September 1769. The port, he claims, was then gripped during a terrible epidemic of smallpox.There were fears, he asserts, that “the living would not be sufficient to bury the dead.” The “whole island,” he asserts, was “filled with shrieks and lamentations both night and day.”

Anxious to leave the hot, and epidemic-stricken port, and to make his way into the cooler, and supposedly more healthy, highlands of the interior, he “suppressed” his “character of physician.” He did so, he says, in fear that he would otherwise be “detained by reason of the multitude of the sick.”

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Medical Activities in Early Times of Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Though Ethiopia long had its own system of medical lore, and a remarkably extensive local traditional pharmacopoeia, the people of the country were for centuries deeply interested in foreign medical practices of all kinds.

The Sixteenth Century

Evidence of Ethiopia’s historic thirst for foreign medicine can be traced back to at least the early sixteenth century. A member of the first Portuguese mission to Ethiopia, Joao Bermudes, who arrived in the country in the 1520s, claimed to be skilled in European medicine. He was in consequence warmly received at the Ethiopian court. The then reigning monarch, Emperor Lebna Dengel, was so impressed by Bermudes that he did not allow him to leave the country.

Lebna Dengel was also deeply interested in acquiring foreign medicine. He accordingly wrote to King Joao of Portugal, in 1521, asking the latter to send him “men who made medicines, and physicians, and surgeons to cure illnesses.”

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Who Lost the Battle of Maqdala?

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

Ethiopian students over many years have often asked why the British, after defeating Emperor Tewodros at Maqdala, in 1868, did not stay on in the country, and make it a “colony”, “protectorate”, “condominium” or “sphere of influence”.

I always gave three answers:

1. That the British had promised from the outset that they would leave as soon as the dispute with Tewodros had come to an end; further, that it was only on that undertaking that they had been allowed, by the Ottoman Empire, to land on the Red Sea coast, and, by Dejazmach Kasa (the future Emperor Yohannes IV) to pass across Tigray; and on that undertaking that they were assured the support of Gobaze, ruler of Lasta, and of Menilek, ruler of Shawa.

2. That the Scramble for Africa, which started only in the 1880s, had not yet begun at the time of the Maqdala battle, but that, had it already started things might have been different.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

The Crowns of Emperor Tewodros: Loot from Maqdala

The Loot from Maqdala

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The dispute, in the 1860’s between Emperor Tewodros II and the British Government, led, it will be recalled, to the extensive looting of the Ethiopian ruler’s mountain fortress of Maqdala, by British troops.

The loot from Maqdala, which included several hundred valuable Ethiopian manuscripts and many other Ethiopian artifacts, both religious and secular, was taken, on 15 elephants and nearly 200 mules, from the fortress of Maqdala to the Dalanta plain. There, as the Anglo-American journalist Henry Morton Stanley reported in his autobiographical book “Coomassie and Magdala”, an auction was held, on 20 and 21 April 1868 for two days.

The German Count von Seckendorff, who was also present at the auction, states that the articles sold included “several golden and gilt crowns”. Stanley wrote, apparently with greater precision, that the loot included “four royal crowns, two of which were very fine specimens of workmanship, and worth a round sum of money” (page 458).

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Maqdala and its Loot: a Brief History

Institute of Ethiopian Studies

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

I. The Fall of Maqdala

The British capture of Maqdala, Emperor Tewodros’s mountain capital in north-west Ethiopia, took place on 13 1868, immediately after the Ethiopian monarch committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies. The fall of the citadel was described by an Ethiopian royal chronicler, Alaqa Walda Mariam, who, looking at the event from an Ethiopian point of view, states that when “everything fell into the hands of the English general… every [Ethiopian] soldier at Maqdala threw his weapons over the precipice and went and groveled before the enemy”. Those who failed to throw away their arms were, he claims, “considered as belligerents and many men thus perished”, presumably at the hands of the victorious army. Elaborating on this assertion, he declares that “the English troops rivalled one another” in “shooting down” any Ethiopian seen carrying spears or guns, and that “when anyone was seen taking up a weapon he was shot”.

The above grim picture, it is only fair to say, finds no confirmation in British official records which, on the other hand, do not, however, provide any contradictory evidence.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Dr and Mrs Pankhurst Write to London “Independent” Newspaper on Maqdala Treasures

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

The question of the return to Greece of the Elgin Marbles has recently re-erupted in the British press, with an article by one Philip Hensher in support of restitution, which appeared in the “Independent” newspaper, in London..

On that occasion the “Independent, on 31 August, published a letter from Professor Richard and Mrs Rita Pankhurst which read in part:

“Philip Hensher’s perceptive article urging the return to Greece of the Elgin marbles prompts us to raise the no less necessary return to Ethiopia of the loot from Magdala, taken by a British Expedition in 1868. The loot comprises a gold crown, some 400 manuscripts, ten tabots, or altar slabs, etc., currently held mainly at the British Library and Museum and the Royal Library at Winsdor Castle.

“The changing international perspective on culture raised by Hensher applies to Ethiopia no less than to Greece. Ethiopian manuscripts in Britain were in the past much studied by European scholars, who deserve our praise. Their legacy has, however, been inherited by Ethiopian scholars. Addis Ababa, rather than London, is now indisputably the main center of Ethiopian Studies. Ethiopian libraries are, moreover, now able to preserve the country’s manuscripts.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More

Mussolini, and the Ethiopian Crowns of Tewodros, Yohannes, Menilek, and Haile Sellassie

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-

During the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia, 1936-1941, the invaders looted not only the Aksum obelisk (which should have been returned in 1947-8, in accordance with the United Nations-Italian Peace, and in 1997, in accordance with the more recent Italian agreement with the present Ethiopian Government).

The Italians also carried off an indeterminate quantity of other Ethiopian artifacts. These included a number of Ethiopian royal crowns. Several of these, according to local tradition, were looted from the famous monastery of Debra Libanos, whose monks and deacons were massacred by the fascists in May 1937.

Mussolini Gives Them to the Colonial Museum

Several Ethiopian crowns at around this time came into the possession of Rodolfo Graziani, the Italian colonial general, who had led the invasion of Ethiopia on the southern front, and was later fascist Viceroy of Ethiopia.

ሙሉውን አንብብ-Read More