Textual transmission from Aksum to Lālibalā: A couple of case studies

It is well known that one of the most dramatic gaps that prevents our understanding of the textual transmission of Gǝʿǝz texts from the Aksumite time to the medieval period is the lack of data on the materiality of the written culture. The few extant documents—a handful of codices predating the fourteenth century, and a still unidentified number of fragments, and very few epigraphic documents of uncertain dating—do not provide any positive consistent picture that helps us make a sense of what happened and of the material conditions of transmission, although some recent rein-terpretations of some documents suggest new paths of inquiry. The distribution of the relevant findings and recently emerged data also help define a geographical area which appears to have played a key role in the vicissitudes of the transmission of written knowledge. Moreover, the missing evidence can be partly complemented with what later texts directly report and, even more, indirectly presuppose. The earliest documentary texts can also provide data that help fill the gap. Against this background, the paper intends to deal with a couple of case studies which illustrate the dynamics of transmission from the Aksumite to medieval times.