Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene: Cultural Transmission, Translation, and Reception

Late antique and medieval Christian Ethiopia were intensively characterized by processess of cultural transmissions and interactions, the most evident and widespread form of which is translations. Attested starting from the most ancient Ethiopian manuscripts, translations are therefore a substantial and constituent part of medieval Ethiopian cultural production and at the same time a core element of its literary heritage. Acquisition through translation from Greek characterizes late antiquity; acquisition, adaptation and revision of texts from Arabic and, later, revision of the Bible on the Hebrew text, occasionally at times, also from Latin, characterise the centuries from the twelfth at the latest to the sixteenth and beyond, with various phases and prevailing interests.