Gallery

A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.

old Lalibela cross 2

Posted by Eva Baby on March 23, 2013 at 11:00am
on an old Ethiopian coptic prayer book. The pages are made of goat skin, the cover is made of wood covered with goat skin. The size of the book is ca. 9,5 x 7,7 cm. It has 50 pages (25 leaves) and is written in Ge-ez. It has four paintings in it, here St. Georges with the dragon. As the goat leather is rather stiff, the book does not stay open without holding it. The Lalibela cross is made of metal alloy, it is easily recognizable by the four doves on each side.
Read more…
Previous
Next
E-mail me when people leave their comments –
Follow

Comments

  • ann March 23, 2013 at 7:47pm

    How lovely and especially the goat skin pages.

  • Eva Baby March 23, 2013 at 10:49pm

    @Thanks Ann! I love old books a lot! This one is very special from the material, and all handmade, and from the spiritual side too.

  • ingrid Langerak September 17, 2013 at 11:20pm

    This ,I am afraid are the ones I mean for tourist, pure nickel. Actually this Lalibella crosses with the birds in this size are quite rare and should be hinged.

  • Eva Baby September 18, 2013 at 8:33am

    @Ingrid: I fear that you are right, it must be a nickel one made for tourists. They sold These kinds in great quantities at an African cultural Festival in Switzerland, and they are very big. I also bought some others of this Kind (e.g the Dese cross), but gave later two of them to a friend who wanted to have one and had missed to buy them. So I only have two left of this Kind, the Lalibela and one Dese I think. 

This reply was deleted.

You need to be a member of Adorned Histories to add comments!

Join Adorned Histories

Request your copy of our newsletter.

If you would like to receive our newsletter

Click here