Ethiopia
ROOM – 1
Ethiopia and the “Third India”
In medieval geographical conceptions, Abyssinia, or Ethiopia, occupied an immense territory close to India which became known as ‘Third India’ or ‘trans-Gangetic India’. In the mid-12th century, at the height of the Crusades, the apocryphal Letter of Prester John of the Indies began to circulate in Europe, telling of a remarkable Christian priest-king who proposed an alliance for the reconquest of the Holy Land and the fight against Islam.
The so-called ‘Demand’ of Prester John encouraged Portugal to extend its reach into Africa. The nation intensified its military and commercial expansion in Morocco on two fronts: one by sea (and river), in 1487, commanded by Bartolomeu Dias, and another in the same year, overland, led by Afonso de Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã. The arrival of the Portuguese at the Malabar coast and knowledge acquired about the complex network of routes across the Indian Ocean profoundly altered, but not definitively, the inaccurate geographies of earlier cartographers.
Dyptich of the Virgin
Wood, gesso, temperas First Gondarine style 17th c. Inv. CA-CFC. 886
Length processional Cross
Bronze, gold Lalibela style 15th c. Inv. CA-CFC.865
The Miracles of Mary (Tä’amrä Maryam)
Illuminated manuscript Parchment, temperas, black ink, leather Second Gondarine style 18th c. Inv. CA-CFC.912
