Imported textiles in Ethiopian eighteenth century manuscript bindings in Britain

Summary

This is the second of two articles; textiles of earlier date are described in Volume XV of Azania. The author was in Ethiopia for many years, and latterly Senior Research Fellow of the BIEA.

Samples of textiles preserved in the bindings of Ethiopian eighteenth century manuscripts, like those of earlier times examined in a previous article, provide tangible evidence on the wide variety of cloth imported into the country in former times. This material, as one would expect from written sources, came mainly from India and Europe. It would seem to be of approximately the same age as the manuscripts themselves, and thus to provide opportunities for textile archaeology.