This is a bit of old news, but I am fascinated by it all. The results of the radiocarbon dating of the Gospels from the Abuna Garima Monastery in Ethiopia were released earlier this year. As previously thought, no surviving Ethiopian manuscripts predated the 12th-century. Secular scholars had been skeptical of the Church's claim that the Garima Gospels were from the hand of Abba Garima himself, who arrived in Ethiopia from Constantinople in the year 494. Their scientific assumptions are now being revised, given that one volume has been dated between 330 to 540 and the other between 430 to 650.
The British press were all over the story, with articles in The Telegraph, here, The Independent, here, and in the Guardian, here. Apparently, such stories do not sell newspapers on this side of the Atlantic. Work of the Ethiopian Heritage Fund can be found here. But for the best and most extensive coverage, by all means, see the site here.
2 comments:
I had just done some reading about the Kells illuminated Gospel when I saw this post from you. These pages are amazing too, and the long article detailing the preservation at hewit.com was a fascinating read.
I didn't find any good close-up full page scans of the works though at any of the links. Do you know if there are any? It would be great to be able to "zoom in" on some of the detail.
Bill,
I wanted to zoom in on them, as well, but I don't know of any other links as yet.
Post a Comment