![]() Like most other religious works, Zena Selassie is written in Ge’ez. The scribes use different pens for each colour used in the text – black or red – and either a fine or broad tip. “We make a stylus from bamboo, sharpening the tip with a razor blade.” This one could take up to six months to complete.” “It’s hard work, starting with the preparation of the parchment and the inks. “It is going to take a lot of time,” the priest said. Sitting in one of the institute’s rooms with parchment pages placed on his knees, Zelalem patiently copied a book titled Zena Selassie (History of the Trinity). “If it’s an individual task, it can take even longer,” she said, leafing through books clad in red leather, their texts adorned with brightly coloured illuminations and religious images. If it is a collective work, large books can take one to two years. Some customers order small collections of prayers or paintings for themselves to have “reproductions of ancient Ethiopian works”, she said. Yeshiemebet said most of the manuscripts are commissioned by individuals who then donate them to churches or monasteries. Once clean and dry, the skins will be stripped of their goat hair and then cut to the desired size for use as pages of a book or for painting. With two other colleagues, the 20-year-old carried out his task using a makeshift scraper, seemingly oblivious to the stench emanating from the animal hide. “After that, we remove the extra layer of fat on the skin’s inside to make it clean.” ![]() “After the goatskin is immersed in the water for three to four days, we make holes on the edge of the skin and tie it to the metal, so that it can stretch,” Tinsaye Chere Ayele said. In the institute’s courtyard, workers stretch goatskins tightly over metal frames to dry under a weak sun. … We thought if we could learn skills from our priests, we could work on it ourselves, so that is how we began,” Yeshiemebet said. The precious works are kept mainly in monasteries, where prayers or religious chants are conducted using only parchment rather than paper manuscripts. “Ancient parchment manuscripts are disappearing from our culture, which motivated us to start this project,” she said. Yeshiemebet Sisay, 29, who is in charge of communications at Hamere Berhan, said the work began four years ago. ![]() The parchments, pens and inks are all prepared at the institute, which lies in the Piasa district in the historic heart of the Ethiopian capital. This painstaking task is preserving an ancient tradition, all the while bringing him closer to God, the 42-year-old said.Īt the Hamere Berhan Institute in Addis Ababa, priests and lay worshippers work by hand to replicate sometimes centuries-old religious manuscripts and sacred artwork. Armed with a bamboo ink pen and a steady hand, Ethiopian Orthodox priest Zelalem Mola carefully copied text in the ancient Ge’ez language from a religious book onto a goatskin parchment.
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