The Two Gospels of Garima ( Garima Codex ) - the oldest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts , according to some sources - the earliest surviving illuminated Christian ( New Testament ) manuscript in the world [1] . They are kept in the monastery of St. Garima near the Ethiopian city of Adua . Based on radiocarbon analysis, the manuscripts are dated between 330 and 650 years ; the study was conducted at the University of Oxford under the auspices of the Ethiopian Heritage Fund (2) [3] .
History
The kingdom of Aksum was one of the first states in the world to officially adopt Christianity in the 4th century . The first Christian preacher and first bishop in Ethiopia was Frumentius (died about 383 years old ), a native of Syrian Tire , a Greek by birth and a Roman citizen. According to legend, one of the nine saints of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Isaac Garima, arrived in Ethiopia in 494. He played a large role in the second wave of the Christianization of Ethiopia (second half of the 5th - the beginning of the 6th centuries). According to the life of St. Garima, he came from a Byzantine imperial family and arrived in Axum from Constantinople in 494 at the call of the Monk Panteleimon [4] . Garima traveled to Ethiopia in a chariot of fire, and when the locals refused to convert to Christianity, he prayed down lightning on them. Where Garima spit, a spring began to beat from the ground. At the end of his life, the saint founded a monastery, where, according to a vow, he rewrote the Gospel in one day. Legend has it: when the abba saw that he did not have time to complete the work, then God through his prayer temporarily stopped the Sun [1] .
Manuscripts
The Garima codes are composed of two books: Garima I and Garima II. The manuscripts are rewritten in two different handwritings, but decorated in a single manner. The first book contains 348 pages, the first 11 of which are richly illustrated. The second, “Garima II”, contains 322 pages, and the first 17 are decorated with miniatures, among which are portraits of four evangelists ( Matthew , Mark , Luke and John ), an unusual image of the Jerusalem temple , as well as flowers, arches and columns. But the most surprising thing is that 20 species of birds appear in miniatures, mainly those that are not found in Ethiopia [5] .
In the style of the drawings, some scholars saw Syrian influence, others - Iranian influence. Next is the New Testament text on Geez , the sacred written language of ancient Abyssinia . A separate miracle is a binding, preserved in its original form. The binding of the book “Garima I” consists of wooden planks bound in gilded copper. In the center is a large cross with holes in which there may have been precious stones. The binding of the book “Garima II” is made of silver and dates from the X - XII centuries .
Research and Expertise
The manuscript has been known to researchers since 1950 , when Beatrice Playne, a British art historian, traveled to Ethiopia and reached the monastery of St. Garima. Women are not allowed to enter, but the monks reverently treated the guest and carried out some treasures to show her. Among other things, she saw a large book with more than three hundred parchment pages, scribbled with the texts of the four canonical gospels on the geez and richly decorated with beautiful bright drawings and ornaments. Plain did not have time to really understand anything about the book, it only seemed to her "Syrian in style."
In the 1960s, Frenchman Jules Leroy took up the study of Garima codes. He managed to get into the library of the monastery and find out that there are actually two books. Leroy, contrary to legends that the codes were created by Father Garima at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th centuries , dated books abroad to the 10th - 11th centuries . This version was mainly based on the analysis of the style of illustrations, as well as the binding, which was completely unusual for the time when Garim's father lived [4] .
In 1963, unique books fell into the hands of the Ethiopian mountain restorer. He re-twisted them, and did it so badly that he messed up the pages, and sewed the gospel of the 14th century into one of the volumes. Whenever books were opened, pieces literally fell off the pages. In such a deplorable state, they spent more than forty years.
In 2006, three specialists went from London to the monastery of St. Garima: the Frenchman Jacques Mercier, a researcher of Ethiopian church art and the author of several books about him; and the British Lester Capon, manuscript restorer, and Mark Winstanley, bookbinder. This group of restorers, with the blessing of the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Pavel, was admitted to the monastery of St. Garima in order to carry out the most urgent measures to save the illustrations from the shedding of the paint layer. Specialists had to work with the manuscript in the open air, putting it on coffins, constantly moving around the monastery courtyard after the shadow and fighting off macaques and birds. They only managed to more or less tidy up the binding. Lester Kapon did not begin to clean him of dust, leaves and dead insects: firstly, they may be of interest to researchers when they finally have the opportunity to seriously deal with Garima codes; and secondly, their removal could weaken the binding [4] .
Before leaving the monastery, Jacques Mercier took with him two pieces of parchment, falling off the books. Both small pieces were sent to the Oxford Laboratory for Radiocarbon Analysis, in June 2010 she published the results of the study: one piece dates back between 330 and 540 years , the other - between 430 and 650 years . Until now, the Gospel of Rabula , rewritten in Syriac in 586 (now stored in Laurenzian in Florence ), was considered the oldest illustrated manuscript of the New Testament [1] .
Mercier also found that not only the text of the gospels is written in 28 lined lines, but also the miniatures contained in the book are aligned along these lines [2] .
Their traces can be seen under a layer of paint, and the frames surrounding the miniatures are also painted on some of them, that is, the scribe and the artist worked synchronously. This, according to the French expert, suggests that the images were made in the same place where the text was written - in the Kingdom of Axum [6] .
Researchers previously believed that the images were made by Syrian masters, and only the text was printed by their Ethiopian counterparts. According to Mercier, the illustrations were created by the local African school of artists, the existence of which was not previously known [2] .
See also
- The gospel of Rabula
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 The man who stopped the sun | Magazine | Around the world
- ↑ 1 2 3 Lenta.ru: Science and technology: Science: Ethiopia was called the birthplace of an unknown school of Christian painting
- ↑ The Arts Nespaper June 2010 - Abuna Garima Gospels Archived on May 1, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Lenta.ru: Science and Technology: Treasures of St. Garima
- ↑ kryukov_a - The gospel of Abba Garima
- ↑ Lenta.ru: Science and technology: Science: Why picture book