Wängelä Wärq
KolTrad III, A51–A61, with 16th cent. notes),
from Betä ÷Päntälewon near Aksum (author’s
documentation; also mentioned in Zuurmond
1989, Part I, 254).
Src.: AfrZion 129; BassHist II, 272, 337; BauEr; BritLib
Orient. 728 (WrBriMus 196, no. 304); CRAxum; CRDLib;
Marie-Laure Derat, “A Royal Correspondence in the
XVth and XVIth Centuries: the Documents of the Gospel of
Däbrä Kärbe”, Aethiopica 9, 2006, 64–79; EMML no. 1832;
GuiVoc 565; Ignazio Guidi, “Il «Gadla ’Aragâwî»”,
MRALm ser. 5a, 2, 1896, 54–96, here 73b, 92; Marilyn
E. Heldman – Monica S. Devens, “The Four Gospels
of Däbrä Mä‘ar: Colophon and Note of Donation”, in:
VarAeth 77–99; HuntLand 51, n. 1; Johannes Kolmodin,
“Abessinische Bücherverzeichnisse (Aus den Inventari-
en der Zion von Aksum und einiger anderen Kirchen)”,
Le Monde Oriental 10, 1916, 241–55, here 246, n. 10;
KolTrad III, A51–A61; Manfred Kropp, “«Antiquae
restitutio legis»: Zur Alimentation des Hofklerus und ei-
ner Zeugenliste als imago imperii und notitia dignitatum
in einer Urkunde des Kaisers Zär’a Ya‘qob im Condaghe
der Hs. BM Or. 481, fol. 154”, in: VarAeth 115–47, here
141ff.; Jules Leroy, “L’Évangéliaire éthiopien du Couvent
d’Abba Garima et ses attaches avec l’ancien art chrétien de
Syrie”, Cahiers Archéologiques 11, 1960, 131–43; Id., “Un
nouvel évangéliaire éthiopien illustré du monastère d’Abba
Garima”, in: André Grabar et al. (eds.), Synthronon. Art
et Archéologie de la fin de l’Antiquité et du Moyen Age …,
Paris 1968 (Bibliothèque des Cahiers Archéologiques 2),
75–87; Gianfrancesco Lusini, “Scritture documentarie
etiopiche (Dabra Deòuòan e Dabra Sege, Sara’e, Eritrea)”,
RSE 42, 1998 [1999], 5–55, here 10; PAwlos SAdwA, “Un
manoscritto etiopico degli Evangeli”, ibid. 11, 1952 [1953],
9–28; Taddesse Tamrat, “The Abbots of Däbrä-Hayq
1248–1535”, JES 8, 1, 1970, 87–117; Rochus Zuurmond,
Novum Testamentum Aethiopice: the Synoptic Gospels,
Part I: General Introduction, Part II: Edition of the Gospel
of Mark, Stuttgart 1989 (AeF 27), Part I, 240–55.
Lit.: Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, La crucifixion sans cru-
cifié dans l’art éthiopien: recherches sur la survie de l’ico-
nographie chrétienne de l’antiquité tardive, Warszawa –
Wiesbaden 1997 (Bibliotheca nubica et aethiopica 4),
8–11; Alessandro Bausi, “Il testo, il supporto e la fun-
zione. Alcune osservazioni sul caso dell’Etiopia”, in:
StudAeth 7-22; Id., “Un indice del Liber Aksumae”,
Aethiopica 9, 2006, 102–46; Id., “Un indice dell’Evan-
gelo d’oro di Dabra Libanos (Šemazana, Akkala Guzay,
Eritrea)”, ibid. 10, 2007, 81–91; Id., “La tradizione scrit-
toria etiopica”, Segno e Testo 6, 2008, 507–57, here 546;
Id. – Gianfrancesco Lusini, “Appunti in margine a una
nuova ricerca sui conventi eritrei”, RSE 36, 1992 [1994],
5–36, here 19f., n. 33; Id. – Gianni Dore – Irma Taddia
(eds.), Materiale antropologico e storico sul «rim» in Etio-
pia ed Eritrea. Anthropological and historical documents
on «rim» in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Torino 2000, 155–65
(Lit.); Carlo Conti Rossini, Principî di diritto consue-
tudinario dell’Eritrea, Roma 1916, 393; DAE I, 17; Jean
Doresse, La vie quotidienne des éthiopiens chrétiens aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, Paris 1972, 150f.; EllLusAnt 75,
79, 82, 121; Jules Leroy, Les manuscrits coptes et coptes-
arabes illustrés, Paris 1974 (Bibliothèque archéologique
et historique 96), 55f.; Richard Pankhurst, “Ethiopian
Manuscript Binding and their Decoration”, Abbay 12,
1983–84, 205–57, here 249; Roger Schneider, “L’Evangé-
1132
liaire de Dabra Libanos de Ham”, in: PICES 8, vol. 2, 163;
Sergew Hable Selassie, Bookmaking in Ethiopia, Leiden
1981, 22–27; Id., “The Monastic Library of Däbrä Hayq”,
in: OrbAethChoj vol. 1, 243–58; Anaïs Wion, “Aux fron-
tières de la codicologie et de la diplomatique. Structure et
transmission des recueils documentaires éthiopiens”, Ga-
zette du Livre Médiéval 48, 2006, 14–25.
Alessandro Bausi
Wansleben, Johann Michael
W. (also Wansleb; French: Jean Michel Vansleb,
Ital.: Giovanni Michele Wanslebio or Vanslebio,
Lat.: Johannes Michael Vanslebius; b. 1 Novem-
ber 1635, Frankenhausen near Erfurt, d. 13 June
1679 Bourron, Fontainebleau) was a German
Orientalist and traveller, who later became a Do-
menican father and a French citizen.
Born as a son of a Lutheran pastor, he started
in Königsberg (1654) studies of theology and
philosophy, as well as of Oriental languages (He-
brew, Samaritan, Persian, Greek, Syriac and Ara-
bic) and mathematics, soon becoming a student
of Hiob ÷Ludolf in GéŸéz (s. Quetif – Echard
1721: 793; W.’s diary for the period preceding his
travels to Egypt is now kept in the “Nachlass
Ludolf” in Weimar, Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv,
ms. 105/103, s. Beltz 1995:86).
As a very promising scholar, W. was sent to
London to take care of the first edition of Lu-
dolf’s Lexicon and Grammatica in 1661 (both
emended and reedited by Ludolf respectively in
1699 and 1702), published in one volume togeth-
er with the Confessio fidei of ase Gälawdewos,
the “liturgy of Dioscorus” and other appendixes
(s. Wansleben 1661). In London he also helped
Edmund Castell (a collaborator of Brian Walton
in the project of the polyglot Bible) in the reali-
sation of the Lexicon heptaglotton (1669), one of
the major achievements of Oriental scholarship
of the 17th cent.
At his return to Germany, W. kept on co-oper-
ating with Ludolf, for whom he also realized from
various libraries, since 1660 at the latest, copies
of GéŸéz manuscripts which are now dissemi-
nated in Europe (s. Bausi 1991: 7ff.; 2009: 261ff.;
SixTana III, 258–63; Six 2007: 113ff.).
Ten years after the visit of abba ÷Gorgoryos
to Germany, under the auspices of the Thur-
ingian Duke Ernst “the Pious” of Saxe-Gotha,
Ludolf prepared an exploratory mission to be
sent to Ethiopia. The aim was to overcome the
lack of information after the expulsion of the
Jesuits thirty years before, and even more that
of highlighting the purported affinities between

the Lutheran and the Ethiopian faith. W. started
the journey alone in June 1663. He was supposed
to spread interest for Luther’s doctrine among
Ethiopian clergy, to invite young “Abyssinian”
pupils to study in Thuringia, and to collect as
much information as possible on church his-
tory, government, peoples, history, geography
and the nature of Ethiopia (s. his instructions,
Flemming 1890: 549; Loth 1986: 72–78). Duke
Ernst planned to support Ethiopians spreading
Christianity in the countries surrounding them,
in order to establish a route to Ethiopia.
W. arrived in Egypt in January 1664. He es-
tablished lively contacts with the Copts. Their
patriarch Matthew, however, warned him not to
go to Ethiopia for security reasons. Therefore,
W. resigned himself to collecting information
on Ethiopia from Copts and from Indians, who
had been at ase ÷Fasilädäs’s court in ÷Gondär,
as well as from Ethiopians in the Cairo churches
and Egyptian monastic communities which W.
visited, e.g., at ÷Dayr al-Muharraq, where he was
also able to copy a few Ethiopic manuscripts and
acquire Arabic ones (almost all of W.’s copies and
Arabic manuscripts resulting from this first trav-
el are presently kept in Florence, cp. Bausi 1991).
He also collected the first reliable information on
÷Dongola and on Darfur (s. Adelberger 1991).
W. returned to Italy in 1665 and sent a report to
Duke Ernst from Florence concerning the politi-
cal situation in Egypt and Ethiopia (Relation von
dem gegenwärtigen Zustande Ägyptenlandes),
only later published from Ludolf’s own copy (s.
Paulus 1794: 10–121, “Johann Michael Wansleb’s
bisher ungedruckte Beschreibung von Aegypten
im Jahr 1664”). The report, however, did not
contain any particular comments on religion.
In Italy W. acquired fame as a great Orientalist,
first in Florence, where he examined at least one
GéŸéz manuscript preserved there in the library
of Grand Duke Ferdinando II, and then in Rome,
where he had occasion of visiting the Ethiopian
community of ÷Santo Stefano dei Mori and an-
notating and copying GéŸéz manuscripts. Prob-
ably in this period, not only for poverty (as
Ludolf, styling W. a betrayer, assumed), but also
for deeper reasons connected with a wider knowl-
edge of Ethiopian canonical writings (as it ap-
pears from his personal notes, s. Bausi 1991: 12),
he converted to Catholicism. W.’s conversion
disconcerted and greatly disappointed Ludolf
and shortly put an end to any cooperation among
the two, even though W. kept on corresponding
Wansleben, Johann Michael
with Duke Ernst. In Rome he eventually became
a Dominican priest at the Convento di Santa
Maria sopra Minerva. In 1668 he asked the ÷Sacra
Congregatio de Propaganda Fide to establish a
school of GéŸéz language and literature in Rome
for a future Catholic mission, which was, how-
ever, not realized (Beccari 1903: 178). His travel
report, dedicated to the Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo III, appeared later in Italian (a language
W. mastered and in which he entertained extensive
correspondence also in his French period) in 1671
in Paris, where W. moved the same year following
the bishop of Montpellier, François Bosquet.
In 1671–76, under initiative of minister of fi-
nance Jean-Baptiste Colbert, W. undertook a new
journey to the Orient, with the principal task
of purchasing Oriental manuscripts and ancient
medals, and of acquiring information on all sort
of archaeological findings, inscriptions, etc. he
would come across (s. Omont 1902, vol. 1, 54–
174, vol. 2, 879–951). Via Eastern Mediterranean,
W. reached Egypt in 1672, and extensively trav-
elled there for two years visiting several places,
for some of which he provided the earliest avail-
able information in Europe (e.g., the White Mon-
astery founded by ÷Shenute of Atripe, the most
important Coptic writer, on whom also he was
the first to report). Yet, he never reached Ethio-
pia. In the monastic compound of St. Anthony
near the Red Sea, in October 1672 he visited the
ruins of a monastery, once inhabited by Ethio-
pians (Wansleben 1677a: 302). He returned to
Paris via Asia Minor and Istanbul in 1677, having
shipped in the course of time and from various
places almost 600 manuscripts to France (Greek,
Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew,
but no GéŸéz except one), now preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale. All this notwithstand-
ing, in consideration of the high costs undertaken
and the disappointment for not reaching Ethio-
pia, Colbert considered W.’s expedition a failure.
Fallen into disgrace, he lived poorly first taking
residence at the Dominicans’ house at rue Saint
Jacques, in Paris, where he published his second
travel account (ibid. 1677a) and his most impor-
tant work, i.e. the Histoire de l’Église d’Alexan-
drie (ibid. 1677b), a milestone in the scientific
investigation of Egyptian Church institutions,
antiquities and writings, and eventually in Bour-
ron in 1678, where he worked as parochial vicar
and died. His planned extensive publications of
Ethiopic works (where the identification of an
ancient GéŸéz version of a 3rd-cent. text of ÷Cy-
1133
Wansleben, Johann Michael
prian of Carthage, the Epistle 70, is also found, s.
Wansleben 1671b) never took place.
After his death, a spurious anti-Catholic pam-
phlet circulating under his name (Wansleben
1679) was strongly criticized by Ludolf in the 2nd
edition of the English translation of his Historia
(s. Ludolf 1684: Preface, bifols. F–G).
Src.: Johannes Michael Wansleben (ed.), Jobi Ludolfi
I.C. Lexicon Aethiopico-latinum …, Londinii 1661;
Id., Relazione dello stato presente dell’Egitto, Parigi
1671a [Arab. tr. Cairo 2006]; Id., Conspectus Operum
Aethiopicorum quae ad excudendum parata habet R.P. Fr.
Joan. Michael Vanslebius, Parisiis 1671b; Id., Nouvelle ré-
lation en forme de journal d’un voyage fait en Égypte. Par
le P. Vansleb, R.D. En 1672 & 1673, Paris 1677a [21698];
Engl. tr.: The Present State of Egypt; or, A New Relation of
a Late Voyage into That Kingdom. Performed in the Years
1672 and 1673. By F. Vansleb … Englished by M.D.B.D.,
London 1678; Id., Histoire de l’église d’Alexandrie fondée
par S. Marc, que nous appelons celle des Jacobites-coptes
d’Egypte, écrite au Caire méme en 1672 et 1673, Paris
1677b; Id. [spurious], A Brief Account of the Rebellions
and Bloodshed Occasioned by the Anti-Christian Practices
of the Jesuits and other Popish Emissaries in the Empire of
Ethiopia. Collected out of a Manuscript History Written in
Latin by Jo. Michael Wansleben, a Learned Papist, London
1679; Job Ludolphus, A New History of Ethiopia, Lon-
don ²1684; Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (ed.),
Sammlung der merkwürdigsten Reisen in den Orient, vol.
3, Jena ²1794 [11782], 10–121, 124–384 (“J.M. Wansleben’s
bisher ungedruckte Beschreibung von Aegypten im Jahre
1664”, “Neue Beschreibung einer Reise nach Aegypten in
den Jahren 1672, 1673 in Form eines Tagebuchs”, ed. by
J.D. Reuss).
Lit.: Jörg Adelberger, “Urimellis”, Sudanic Africa 2,
1991, 177-78; Alastair Hamilton, The Copts and the
West 1439–1822: the European Discovery of the Egyptian
Church, Oxford 2006 (Warburg Studies), 142–50, pas-
sim; Alessandro Bausi, “I manoscritti etiopici di J.M.
Wansleben nella Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firen-
ze”, RSE 33, 1989 [1991], 5–33 (Lit.): Id., [review of Six
2007], Aethiopica 12, 2009, 259–63; Camillo Beccari,
Notizia e Saggi di opere e documenti inediti riguardanti
la Storia di Etiopia durante i secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII,
con otto facsimile e due carte geografiche, Roma 1903, 178;
Walter Beltz, “Johann Michael Wansleben: zu den An-
fängen der deutschen Koptologie und Äthiopistik”, in:
Id. (ed.), Übersetzungen und Übersetzer im Verlag J.H.
Callenbergs. Internationales Kolloquium in Halle (Saale)
vom 22.–24. Mai 1995, Halle 1995 (Hallesche Beiträge
zur Orientwissenschaft 19), 86–87; August Beck, Ernst
der Fromme, Herzog zu Sachsen-Gotha und Altenburg,
Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des 17. Jahrhunderts, Weimar
1865, vol. 2, 162ff., 570ff., 580f.; Jean-Marie Carré,
Voyageurs et écrivains français en Egypte, 2 vols., Le Caire
1956, vol. 1, 29–36; Johannes Flemming, “Hiob Ludolf,
Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der orientalischen Philologie”,
Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissen-
schaft 1, 1890, 537–82, here 537, 548f., 555, 563; Heinrich
Loth (ed.), Reisen nach Nigritien, Bilder afrikanischer
Vergangenheit, Leipzig 1986, 70–87; Maurice Martin,
“Le journal de Vansleb en Egypte”, Bulletin de l’Institut
français d’archéologie orientale 97, 1997, 181–91; Henri
1134
Omont, Missions archéologiques françaises en Orient aux
XVII et XVIII siècles, Paris 1902, vol. 1, 54–174, vol. 2,
879–951, passim; Abbé Alexandre Pougeois, Vansleb,
savant orientaliste et voyageur, Sa vie, sa disgrâce, ses
oeuvres, Paris 1869; SixTana III, 258–63; Jacobus Quetif
[Quétif] – Jacobus Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedica-
torum recensiti …, Lutetiae Parisiorum 1721, vol. 2, 793f.;
Veronika Six, “Äthiopische Handschriften”, in: Rena-
te Würsch (ed.), Die orientalischen Handschriften der
Burgerbibliothek Bern, Wiesbaden 2007, 111–39, here
113ff.
Wolbert Smidt – Alessandro Bausi
Waq
W. (also Awaqa; adressed as ganòwe, ‘majesty’
[Leslau 1979: 64, 453, cp. also ÷Ïanhoy]) is one
of three main ÷spirits or deities of the autoch-
tonous ÷Gurage folk-÷religion. He is associ-
ated with the sky (as is his namesake ÷Waaqa)
and his most important symbol is the shooting
star. W. is believed to be the source of power and
wealth. He is seen as protector of his people and
their gän (‘country’ or ‘district’) in times of war
and as guarantor of ÷‘customary law’ (qicca) and
‘justice’ (ang). While the two other main spirits,
÷Dämwamwit and ÷Boïïä, are venerated all over
Säbat bet Gurage, W. has a local image, name and
ritual tradition in each group. In fact, the term
W. seems to cover a class of spirits rather than a
single spiritual being. Such W. spirits are Saýamär
in ÷Éndägañ, ÷Énär and ÷Mäsmäs, Gäbär in
÷Énnämor, Awägyä(t) or Ogyät in Óaha and
Gumär, Mando or Yénfaša in ÷Geto, Énggyäbär
in ÷Éïa, and Yämwarär in Aklil. In ÷Muòér folk-
religion, which has a high degree of Christian ele-
ments, Iyäsus (Jesus) was equated with W.
W. is venerated at various local sacred places
situated on mountain tops and in groves. Every
gän has its central shrine where chiefs are installed
and assemblies are held under a holy ÷tree. The
priests of his cult (wäg or awaýé), some of which
are female, act as spirit mediums (÷Possession
cults) and judges. They also function as conven-
ors of the annual cést feast in honour of W. Many
of their ritual assistants are members of an en-
dogamous social group, called ÷fuga.
Among all local W. cults of the western Gur-
age that of Awägyät, the spiritual patron of the
÷yägoka pan-Gurage assembly in the Yäbaze
district of Óaha, achieved a central role by ritu-
ally and politically integrating the diverse sub-
groups. The highest representative of Awägyä, is
a female spirit medium with the title of yogäpäóa
dämam (‘lady of Wägäpäóa [the place of the
shrine]’). She is chosen “by W.” from the virgins