Digital facsimile: A highly talismanic Ethiopian magic scroll

Lloyd D. Graham

This report provides scanned images of a non-figurative Ethiopian magic

scroll for Yemeru Walda-Ab. Its imagery is of the diagrammatic type and
has high talismanic density. Brief curatorial notes are included, including
analyses of client name insertions, one of the drawings and some voces
magicae, but the main intention is to provide high-resolution (zoomable)
images that will allow others virtual access to the artifact.

Background literature: Introductory books on Ethiopian magic scrolls include

Jacques Mercier’s Ethiopian Magic Scrolls1 and Art That Heals – The Image as
Medicine in Ethiopia.2 Overview papers include Sevir Chernetsov’s “Ethiopian Magic
Texts.”3 For a recent review of the scroll-making däbtära – the Ethiopian counterpart
to the Islamic marabout – see Siena de Ménonville’s “In Search of the Debtera: An
Intimate Narrative on Good and Evil in Ethiopia Today.”4

Provenance: Mesfin Mehari, Addis Ababa. The top and bottom fragments were
offered for sale separately but at the same time. Several years later, the third fragment
was offered online by the same vendor and I recognised it as the missing central piece
of the scroll. The tear edges match up perfectly.

Identification: Author’s collection, cat. nos. M24 (top), M25 (bottom), M24/25/A
(centre).

Date: Unknown; presumably mid-late 20th century.

Dimensions: Top fragment is 58.0 x 8.3 cm; middle fragment is 22.0 x 8.3 cm;
bottom fragments is 61.5 x 8.2 cm. Reassembled, the scroll would be 141.5 cm long.

Medium: Parchment, presumably goatskin. Two strips were sewn together to form
the complete scroll; the seam is located in the central fragment (Fig. 6).

Client: The scroll has been activated for a person named Yäməru Wäledä ʾäbə (የምሩ
ወልደ አብ), “Yemeru Walda-Ab.”5 There are ca. 36 insertions of the name in the
scroll – not always the full name-set, and sometimes with the components in a
different order (statistics in Appendix 1). The names seem to have been added after
the main text had been completed, often at locations with pink pencil highlight or

1
Jacques Mercier (1979) Ethiopian Magic Scrolls, George Braziller, New York.
2
Jacques Mercier (1997) Art That Heals – The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia, Museum for African
Art/Prestel, New York.
3
Sevir Chernetsov (2006) “Ethiopian Magic Texts,” Forum for Anthropology and Culture, nº 2, 188-
200.
4
Siena de Ménonville (2018) “In Search of the Debtera: An Intimate Narrative on Good and Evil in
Ethiopia Today,” Journal of Religion in Africa 48, 105-144.
5
Literally “Yemeru Son-of-the-Father,” but Walda-Ab is a name in its own right; e.g. Haggai Erlich
(2002) The Cross and the River: Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Nile, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, p.130.

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overwriting (8 instances; Appendix 1). Perhaps the pink annotations serve to flag
some of the locations where the name of the client should be inserted once the scroll
has been bought. That said, some locations with pink mark-up are not associated with
insertion of the names. In one instance (in the overlap of Figs. 3 & 4), the name-set
stretches horizontally across both columns.

Type: Text plus talismanic diagrams of the archaic type found in handbooks such as
the Net of Solomon and the Prayers for Undoing Spells.6 Most scrolls on the market
today are of the figurative type, and the non-figurative ones that do occasionally
appear do not approach the talismanic density of this specimen.

Figures: Eight blocks of drawings: Figs. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (2 blocks) & 11. There is an

abundance of talismanic crosses, some very intricate.7 In the final diagram, which
contains a spiral prayer, the two intertwined snake-like creatures represent Behemoth
and Leviathan.8 The version in the scroll is archaic, with traits reminiscent of an early
Coptic charm.9 The symbols of the four Evangelists appear in the four corners.10 A
small image of this diagram (with higher contrast settings) was published previously
alongside its comparanda.11

Text: Gəʿəz, Figs. 1, 3 & 5-11. Many invocations in the name of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. Also, two conspicuous blocks of repeated voces magicae or nomina
barabara, as follows.
Block 1: dəmiṭirosä (x7); sätotawe (x3); gadäsäṭäsä (x3); yähodə turəṣ́ätə (x3);
pwarəpwarə pwarəpwarəpwarəpwarəpwarə ğäğäğäğäğäğäğä čäčäčäčäčäčäčä
č ̣äč ̣äč ̣äč ̣äč ̣äč ̣äčä žižižižižižiži.
Block 2: ––rərə; yagərərə (x2); yä–– rə yäʾäsärə (x2); dätə––rə dätəʾäśärə dätə-
ʾäśä–. Presumably this originally read yagərərə (x3) yäʾäsärə (x3) dätəʾäśärə (x3).
These voces (for which all repeats are written out in full) do not seem to feature
in the Prayers for Undoing Spells (the maftəḥe šərāy), which is the main compendium
for such words, although some voces in that handbook (ğağağa, čečeče) resemble
some of the monosyllable repeats in Block 1.12 The terminal modifications on the
final two symbols in this block (č ̣ä, ži) probably serve a double purpose by making the
glyphs indistinguishable from magical charakteres (e.g., č ̣ = ጨ). Compare žiži...
(Block 1) to zazazazi in a Coptic spell.13 Yähodə (Block 1) may refer to Judah/Yehud.

There are three short annotations on the reverse (Fig. 12). The illegible black text
(upper panel) is positioned 10 cm from the beginning of the scroll. The partly legible
black text (middle panel) is positioned 15 cm from the beginning of the scroll. The
purple text (lower panel) is positioned 39 cm from the beginning of the scroll; it reads
bäsämä ʾäbə ṭä (i.e., it begins with the standard formula “In the name of the Father”).

6
Mercier (1979) Ethiopian Magic Scrolls, p.23-24, 30-31 & Fig. X.
7
Mercier (1997) Art That Heals, Fig. 47 (p.54).
8
Mercier (1997) Art That Heals, Fig. 48, left-hand side (p.55).
9
Mercier (1997) Art That Heals, Fig. 11 (p.20).
10
Mercier (1997) Art That Heals, Fig. 47, right-hand side (p.54).
11
Lloyd D. Graham (2013) “Mother Earth, Pisces and the Two-Tailed Mermaid,” Fig. 5a-c & p.5-6;
online at http://www.academia.edu/3336225/Mother_Earth_Pisces_and_the_Two-Tailed_Mermaid.
12
Stefan Strelcyn, 1955, “Prières Magiques Éthiopiennes pour Délier les Charmes,” Rocznik
Orientalistyczny 18, Polska Akademia Nauk, Warszawa, p.145.
13
Marvin W. Meyer & Richard Smith (1994) Ancient Christian Magic, Harper, San Francisco, p.65.

2
 3
Fig. 1
Fig. 2

4
Fig. 3

5
Fig. 4

6
Fig. 5 (end of RH column contains start of Block 1 voces)

7
Fig. 6 Top of central fragment (top of RH column contains end of Block 1 voces)

8
Fig. 7 Bottom of central fragment

9
Fig. 8

10
Fig. 9 (middle of RH column contains Block 2 voces)

11
Fig. 10

12
Fig. 11

13
Fig. 12 Annotations on reverse of top fragment. Upper and middle panels from
reverse of Fig. 1, bottom panel from reverse of Fig. 3.

APPENDIX 1 – Statistical analysis of client name insertions

Code: Yäməru = Y; Wäledä = W; ʾäbə = A.

Permutation YWA WAY Y WA Pink

annotation
Fig. 1 3 1 1 1 YWA (1)
Fig. 3 3 1 2 - YWA (1)
Fig. 5 1 - 1 - -
Fig. 6 - 1 1 - WAY (1)
Fig. 7 - 1 1 - Y (1)
Fig. 8 1 1 - - YWA (1)
Fig. 9 2 - 7 - Y (1)
Fig. 10 1 1 2 - YWA (1)
Fig. 11 2 1 - - YWA (1)
Totals: 13 7 15 1 (8)

Figures not listed in the table did not contain any name insertions.

BY-NC-SA 4.0 | Lloyd D. Graham (2018) v.01_17.12.18.

Cite as: Lloyd D. Graham (2018) “Digital facsimile: A highly talismanic Ethiopian magic scroll,”
online at https://independent.academia.edu/LloydGraham, mirrored at
https://www.scribd.com/user/10446800/Lloyd-Graham.

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