Book of Hymns for the Funeral Ritual Mäwaśǝʾǝt

Ethiopian (Artist)

19th century (Modern)

ink on parchment bound between wooden boards covered with blind-tooled leather
(Ethiopia)

This small manuscript is a is a copy of the Mäwas??t, a book of hymns for the funeral ritual, copied in a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century hand. The Mäwas??t is based on the Psalms of David. This book is remarkable becaue it contains musical notations. A series of interlinear signs, called melekket in Ge'ez, provide a mnemonic system that assists the singer in remembering the tunes of the melodies associated with the signs and applying them to the words below.

Provenance

**Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.**

Rev. R. K. Le Fleur, ca. 1970 (?), by gift; Walters Art Museum, 2014, by gift.

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Geographies

Ethiopia (Place of Origin)

Measurements

H: 4 13/16 × W: 3 9/16 × D: 1 15/16 in. (12.3 × 9 × 5 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Rev. R. K. Le Fleur, 2014

Location in Museum

Not on view

Accession Number

In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.

W.931

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