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Painted on parchment (prepared animal skin), these manuscript leaves come from a book of verses praising Mary. The illustrations depict St. George, patron saint of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Church, and the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. Characteristic of many Ethiopian manuscripts, the stained edges reveal their frequent handling. The text is written in Ge’ez, an ancient Semitic part of the Afro-Asiatic language family that is still used in Ethiopian churches. Amharic, one of the official secular languages of Ethiopia today, descends from Ge’ez.
To create manuscripts like this, artisans folded sheets of parchment into groupings called quires that were sewn together and bound as a codex, or book (note the four small holes at the centerfold). Once bound, the codex was inscribed and painted, with the pages usually alternating between text and image. The text in this example is not continuous between pages, indicating leaves are missing.