FROM AKSUM TO LALIBÄLA. THE MYTH OF THE “DARK AGES” OF ERITREAN AND ETHIOPIAN HISTORY (7TH–13TH CENTURIES)

Luisa Sernicola; Massimo Villa

doi:10.6093/978-88-6719-352-3

FROM AKSUM TO LALIBÄLA. THE MYTH OF THE “DARK AGES” OF ERITREAN AND ETHIOPIAN HISTORY (7TH–13TH CENTURIES)

Authors

Luisa Sernicola

University of Naples L'Orientale

Massimo Villa

University of Naples L'Orientale

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/978-88-6719-352-3

Synopsis

Editore: UniorPress

Collana: Studi Africanistici - Serie Etiopica, 13

Pagine: 398

Lingua: Italiana

Abstract: Originating from the 1st Neapolitan Meeting of Eritrean and Ethiopian Studies, held in Naples in March 2023, this volume offers a critical reassessment of the long period spanning the decline of Aksum and the rise of the Solomonic dynasty (seventh–thirteenth centuries), conventionally designated as the “Dark Ages” of Eritrean and Ethiopian history. Rather than reiterating a narrative predicated upon notions of irreversible decline, systemic crisis, and cultural stagnation, the contributions assembled here interrogate established historiographical paradigms and advance alternative interpretative frameworks grounded in recent interdisciplinary scholarship.

Bringing together archaeology, philology, history, linguistics, epigraphy, manuscript studies, and environmental history, the volume examines the complex and multifaceted processes of political, economic, social, and cultural transformation that shaped this period. The essays foreground patterns of continuity, adaptation, and innovation, highlighting the central role of monastic institutions, the reconfiguration of commercial networks, the impact of environmental change, and the evolution of linguistic and literary practices. Newly emerging archaeological evidence, recent manuscript discoveries, and refined linguistic analyses collectively delineate a substantially more nuanced and dynamic historical landscape, characterised by mobility, regional differentiation, and sustained intellectual activity.

Eschewing the pursuit of a seamless and linear historical reconstruction, the volume instead advocates a critical “deconstruction” of inherited narratives, fostering sustained dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and methodological approaches. By situating these transformations within broader comparative perspectives and by problematising rigid models of periodisation, this collection seeks to redefine the historical significance of a pivotal yet understudied epoch, while opening new avenues of inquiry into the longue durée of Eritrean and Ethiopian history.

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Author Biographies

Luisa Sernicola, University of Naples L'Orientale

Luisa Sernicola is a Research Technologist at the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies, University of Naples “L’Orientale,” and a member of the Scientific Board of Rassegna di Studi Etiopici and of the Center for African Studies within the same Department. Field director of the Italian Archaeological Expedition at Aksum (Tigray, northern Ethiopia), jointly organized by the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and ISMEO – International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies, she also coordinates the project The Konso Agricultural Landscape: Documenting Traditional Terracing Systems in South-West Ethiopia, funded by the British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme. Her research focuses on the study of the evolution of human ecosystems and on long-term dynamics of human–environment interaction, with particular attention to the regions of the northern Horn of Africa. She also explores these phenomena through the use of digital technologies applied to the documentation and interpretation of landscapes and socio-environmental transformations. On these subjects, as well as on the results of her archaeological fieldwork, she has published articles and monographs.

Massimo Villa, University of Naples L'Orientale

Massimo Villa is a research fellow at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. He has been member of the projects “Ethio-SPaRe: Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia: Salvation, Preservation, Research” (2014–2015) and “Beta masāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea” (2016–2018) at the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (HLCEES), Hamburg University. Currently member of the project “CaNaMEI: Catalogo Nazionale dei Manoscritti Etiopici in Italia” and involved in various initiatives aiming at cataloguing Ethiopic manuscript collections preserved in European institutions, he also carrying out research activities in the field of the literature of translation from Greek to Classical Ethiopic, with particular attention on the textual tradition of the Physiologus. He is author of numerous articles on Classical Ethiopic literature. His monograph “Filologia e linguistica dei testi gǝʿǝz di età aksumita. Il Pastore di Erma” was published in 2019.