What: Fragments including pictures, bible books, Miracles of Mary, letter to Tewodros, Amharic documents with his seal, hymns, prayers, charms and inventories. Is this a collection of ripped/partial manuscripts picked up at Maqdala?
Where: The British Library, 96 Euston Rd, London NW1 2DB
What: An Ethiopian manuscript dated 1750 including prayers, prescriptions and the Mäṣhafä Mädḥanit directory of medicinal plants, with more than 200 illustrations of “magical pictures, squares and lines of magical and talismans”. A small vellum leaf is bound in ff.6-7 containing a magical formula for changing into a lion or another beast
Where: The British Library, 96 Euston Rd, London NW1 2DB
Provenance: A note on f. 3r reads “belonging to the Church of the Saviour of the World’ at Magdala” A note on the first page reads: “Bought of Mr De Vere Crossley, 28 Aug. 1933”
What: An Ethiopian manuscript, dated 1696, of the Fetha Nagast legal code, the Faws Manfasawi and part of the Christian treatise Didascalia Apostolorum. Described as having “beautiful and even script” throughout
Where: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin/Berlin State Library, Unter den Linden 8, Potsdamer Straße 33, Westhafenstraße 1, Berlin.
Provenance: One of two manuscripts that Graf von Seckendorf bought after the Battle of Magdala and presented to King Wilhelm, according to A. Dimmmann’s 1878 book Verzeichnis der abessinischen Handschriften, Berlin, Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften – G. Vogt (Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Band 3).
That says: “… und sodann im Jahr 1869 die Prachthandschrift 19 und die werthvolle Nr. 42 von Sr. Majestät dem König Wilhelm, an welchen sie Graf von Seckendorf, Lieutenant im ersten Garderesiment zu Fufs, verehrt hatte: der letztere hatte sie in Abessinien nach dem Sturm auf Magdala angekauft”
which, roughly, translates as “…and then in 1869 the magnificent manuscript 19 and the valuable No. 42 from His Majesty King William, to whom Count von Seckendorf, Lieutenant in the First Guard Resiment in Fuss, had presented it: the latter had purchased it in Abyssinia after the storming of Magdala”.
The reference to a purchase after the storming of Maqdala probably refers to the auction of plunder that took place after the battle.
Detail: Listed as No. 42 in von Seckendorf’s catalogue. The entry in the catalogue describes the manuscript as Ms. or. fol. 595.
