Prayerbook for itinerant monks with an illustration of the Holy Trinity, Amhara (Ethiopia), 19th century.
The Christian Church in Ethiopia belongs to the monophisitic Churches which emphasise the unity of the Trinity (God Father, Son and Holy Ghost) more than any other Christian Church. Accordingly the book, containing prayers to the Holy Trinity, renders the three personified concepts identical and merging with each other. The illustration furthermore conforms to the aesthetic characteristics of religious representations – predominantly three-dimensional – in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa: frontality, a high degree of symmetry, and immobility, an indication of mental sublimity. >>Prayerbook for itinerant monks with an illustration of the Holy Trinity; ink on parchment; Amhara (Ethiopia), 19th century; 15 x 9 cm.
Acc.no. 62509a.
Photo: A. Dreyer.