PEMM Update No. 1: Progress Report on 2020
By Wendy Laura Belcher and Evgeniia Lambrinaki
February 12, 2021
Update on progress between February 2020 and February 2021.
PEMM in numbers
The team has accomplished a huge amount of work since the cataloging stage of the PEMM project began a year ago in February 2020. Building on the Macomber cataloging of Ethiopic manuscripts, PEMM has:
- 122 manuscripts fully cataloged
- 54 manuscripts in process or almost complete
- 13,600 records of individual stories documented
- 4,250 incipits keyboarded by research assistants
- 18 new stories added to the list of canonical stories
PEMM story discoveries
One of the main purposes of PEMM is to uncover “new” stories, those that are very rare and previously undocumented, often appearing in only one manuscript. In the 1980s, 13 percent of the stories Macomber identified appeared in only one manuscript.
As of February 2021, PEMM had uncovered nineteen (19) rare “new” stories (IDs 1052-1070) in seven (7) manuscripts.
Among these manuscripts, one especially stands out: EMML 6835. Abbot Gabra Maryam wrote this manuscript in the nineteenth century in Däbrä Zämäddo, a monastery in Ethiopia. Professor Getatchew Haile had already identified this manuscript as one worthy of special study and he had translated forty-five unique local miracles, that is, stories of miracles that happened in and around the monastery.
When the PEMM team began full cataloging of this manuscript’s 221 stories, it turned out the manuscript was packed with other new stories. Many of these were incredibly inventive and detailed expansions of the early stories about the Holy Family. As cataloger Mehari Worku puts it, “this scribe was a creative writer genius!”
You can read two of those wonderful stories on the PEMM website, including one about 68 dogs who seek justice from the Virgin Mary, Story ID 1068 and 1069. and anot
