The Map of Ethiopia by Hiob Ludolf and Abba Gorgoryos (1683) as a Source for Cultural Concepts and Indigenous Knowledge

The Orientalist Hiob Ludolf stands at the beginning of Ethiopian philology and early ethnographic research on north-east Africa. Ludolf’s works are remarkable in their richness of cultural information and their breadth. Especially his cooperation with the Ethiopian scholar and theologian Abba Gorgoryos is to be noted, who travelled from Rome to Gotha in 1652. With his help, Ludolf described the complex leadership structures of the Ethiopian empire, ethnographica, languages, political history and theology, peoples and principalities, such as the empire of Kafa in the interior of Africa, which was almost unknown in Europe. The remarkable biography of Abba Gorgoryos, usually called “Abba Gregorius Æthiops” in Europe, has been described several times elsewhere, but still deserves more attention and research (Smidt 2024; Ludolf 1691; Ludolf 1684). Gorgoryos became an Orthodox monk at a young age, then, being a relative of courtiers of the Ethiopian emperor, quickly rose in rank at the court, became a teacher of the dignitaries’ children, an abbot of a monastery and finally the secretary to the newly appointed Catholic Patriarch of Ethiopia, the Portuguese Afonso Mendes, at the request of the emperor, who had apostatised from the Orthodox faith. Gorgoryos went into exile in Goa, India, when Catholic dominance in Ethiopia collapsed in 1632, and soon went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and finally to Rome. There, in 1649, the young Ludolf, who was at the beginning of his orientalist research, met him and became his student of the Ethiopian church language Ge’ez. Ludolf also learned Amharic from Gorgoryos and worked closely with him on cultural and historical questions about Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries.

This culminated in an invitation by Duke Ernest I the Pious in Gotha in 1652, when he had just hired Ludolf as a learned courtier. From this arose a longer collaboration by correspondence that went beyond this visit and ended abruptly when Abba Gorgoryos died on his way back to Ethiopia in 1658 while undertaking a mission co-financed by the Duke of Gotha. Ludolf, and to some extent other scholars of the time, continued to draw on the information and writings of the Ethiopian scholar for a long time to come.

A particularly rich example of this Ethiopian-European joint work, often mentioned but so far little discussed in detail, is the map presented here. While working on the information found on Portuguese maps, one of the first joint products was an initially handwritten map by Ludolf in 1652, which was drawn and published a few decades later by his son Christian Ludolf (1683), with reference to a kind of co-authorship by “Gregorius Habess[inus]”¹ as well as a dedication in Geʿez: “igzi’abihér yibarko länigusä nägäst zä’ityop’ya wäyi^caqäbo amlakuy” (“May God bless the king of the kings of Ethiopia, and may divinity preserve him”). In addition, a royal coat of arms printed on the map shows Ludolf’s interpretation of an Ethiopian tradition regarding the lion as the heraldic animal of the ruler (fig. 2).

This Ge’ez quote shows an interesting link between the Ethiopian lands and the Christian God and is an early evidence of the central connection in Ethiopian politics, not only of the ruler but also of the specific territory of Ethiopia, with divine blessing. This is a religious essentialisation of the land, which is not only connected to God through blessing (as we see it on the map), but also through the descent of the Ethiopian kings of kings from King Solomon, whereby they can be considered relatives of Jesus. This in turn corresponds to an original Ethiopian understanding of their country as chosen by God, under the protection of Saint Mary, whose Christian belief brings it closer to God than other peoples. This is reinforced by the royal coat of arms added to the top left of the map, with the Ge’ez quote “mo’a anbäsa zä’imnägädä yihuda” (“the conquering lion from the tribe of Judah”), a biblical phrase reinterpreted as a royal motto (Revelation 5:5)². Not all Ethiopian rulers used this as their motto, but centuries later it was used again by Emperor Minilik II, who ruled Ethiopia from 1889 to 1909 and triumphed against Italian colonial expansion.

This brings us to a particularly helpful and hitherto little discussed topic for understanding the interaction between Gorgoryos and Ludolf: We need to underline the role of Gorgoryos as an African co-author of a European map, whose presence opened up a hitherto inaccessible “research field” for Ludolf. Formally and graphically, their joint work on a map representing the Ethiopian regions follows European models. With its depicted animals such as elephants, mountain and river symbols as well as small towns and turrets, it is a typical Baroque map. In this respect, it is not to be regarded as an African map, but as a European map of a region in Africa.³ And yet: a closer look leads back to the fluid, oral interaction between the two, marked by lively exchanges in Amharic and Ge’ez. One sees the hand of Ludolf, but hears the voice of Gorgoryos.

The challenge was to bring onto the map the oral descriptions of routes that Gorgoryos himself knew from his travels and wanderings along the Catholic and Orthodox centres, especially in western and northern Ethiopia, as well as the directions to more distant neighbouring countries and lowland areas. In the process of this exchange, a map was created which, if we focus on its content, very clearly reflects local knowledge as well as culturally shaped territorial ideas, and this from the perspective of the Ethiopian highlanders. Let me underline it in advance: the cooperation with Gorgoryos did not mean an objectively better map in the strict sense of the word, a map that would reflect local conditions ”correctly”, shaped by the wealth of local knowledge. The map is clearly an advance on all known maps of the time, a document of living, “savoury” knowledge.⁴ But at the same time, it is a document of local perspectives, and this includes local power relations and biases. This too makes it a document of a local, orally transmitted cultural heritage, in this case of cultural-geographical traditions that Gorgoryos shared with Ludolf.

Most striking is the contrast between the highlands, which corresponds to the Christian state of Ethiopia, to which Gorgoryos belonged, and the “pagan” lowlands. The highlands are elaborated in detail, with the names of sub-provinces, principalities, important routes and rivers. We also find references to ethnic concepts that reveal a very specific political-cultural perspective depending on the region: in western lowland areas, beyond the Nile tributaries, the “Shankala” are recorded, including a note that they were “Nomades incertis sedibus per deserta vagantes” (“nomads of uncertain abodes wandering through the desert”). This suggests a lack of connection with specific, well-defined territories and thus “savagery”.

The ethnic designation “Shankala” refers to the distinctly pejorative term of the Ethiopian highland languages shanqäla (ሻንቀላ), which due to its negative connotations has to be translated as “savage blacks” or, in extension, as “black-skinned slaves”.⁵ These regions outside the actual territory of Ethiopia were in many cases regular slave-hunting grounds of the highlanders. Depending on the context, the meaning of this term can also be “slave”, always with the connotation of black skin colour – a reference to the idea of the often lighter-skinned highlanders of the Ethiopian state. The shanqäla shown on this map, however, are not scattered, abducted slaves, but inhabitants of a region on the edge of Ethiopian control, in the hot lowlands bordering Sudan. In the case of this map, these are the lands to the west of the Ethiopian kingdom of Gojjam. In fact, ethnic groups of Nilo-Saharan background, the Gumuz, live there to this day and their historical lore has preserved the memory of slave hunts from the neighbouring highlands until the early 20^th century (Abdussamad 1999).

Another important term in this context is the also more or less pejorative denomination “Galla”. This is the Amharic term, already attested in the 16^th century, mostly for Oromo peoples, but also occasionally for other Cushitic-speaking groups that were only temporarily subordinate to Ethiopian domination, or not at all. The connotations are different, do not include “blackness”, but very much a cultural devaluation and a connotation of ungovernability. They, too, have been enslaved in many cases, for example after war campaigns, which is why in some regions of highland Ethiopia the word galla is still used today in local, informal language as a term for slaves, also in the meaning of a dependent, housebound labourers without income, who still exist in isolated cases today. On the map, they appear scattered over wide areas, south-west of Ethiopia as well as in many areas further south-east. With this visually suggested scatteredness and diversity, the impression of a migration of large masses of people into most diverse areas becomes impressively comprehensible – which is precisely corresponding to the general image these populations have among the traditional inhabitants of the Christian Ethiopian highland state.

They themselves, however, use each their own particular ethnonyms, as neither Ludolf nor Gorgoryos note: their self-designations are mostly related to their regions and specific subgroups. In addition, early sources also mention a genealogical denomination that encompasses all groups, such as “Ilmaa Or[o]maa” (“Children of the [Ancestor] Or[o]maa”), from which the current self-designation “Oromo” developed. The fact that the Oromo were actually not forming a strong political unit, but consisted of various economically and politically different subgroups (some of whom had previously assimilated other ethnic groups) and independent political entities, is not made visible by the use of the very generalising exonym “Galla” on this map. It can only be guessed at one place where the map notes “Borin Galla” in the far south-west. This refers in fact to one of the most important subdivisions of the Oromo: these were respectively the “Booranaa” and the “Bareentuu”, the former being considered the older group, possessing a more “original”, more ancient culture, according to the prevailing narrative.⁶ Ludolf notes that Gorgoryos also explained to him basic vocabulary of the “Gallan Language” of these peoples settling in the vicinity of Ethiopia and partially within Ethiopia (Ludolf 1684: 80).

The recent Oromo migrations are quite obviously brought up to date on the map (albeit from a highlander’s perspective): even at the borders of the highlands in the north, south-east of “Doba” (referring to the Doba^ca), the “Galla” are put beneath the “Azabo”. This corresponds to the Rayyaa-Azaboo region in present-day south-east Tigray, whose population is now largely Tigrinnya-speaking but had emerged from an earlier Oromo settlement. According to recent research into the family traditions of the still Oromo-speaking inhabitants of Rayyaa-Azaboo, most Oromo did not settle there until the early 18^th century (Oba-Smidt [forthcoming]), while further traditions, confirmed by this map, point to a much earlier presence at least of some groups (Fesseha [forthcoming]). This apparent contradiction can be resolved: smaller Oromo groups probably lived along Ethiopian routes (and, moreover, in border areas under weak state control) from early on and could grow considerably in size at any time through further population movements, always along the same routes to the south as well as to the north, which then also led to several different historical traditions.

Looking into the highlands, in turn, shows us another remarkable aspect of this map: conceptually, the course of the rivers is particularly interesting. The kingdom of Gojjam (here “Gojam”), which was ruled by its own dynasty, is almost rounded by the Nile tributary Abbay, here in the somewhat older form “Abawi”. This corresponds to the Ethiopian way of speaking about this territory, which is “flowed around by the Nile”, or, according to the popular Ethiopian interpretation of the Bible, by the paradise river Gihon. This circular representation reflects the idea of a geometrically perfect, divinely legitimised landscape, shaped by biblical history, as claimed by Ethiopian geographical-theological doctrine (Smidt 2007). Thus, the rather schematic representation here is not an outgrowth of a simplification by the European cartographer, but a faithful reproduction of an orally transmitted territorial concept from Ethiopian self-perception. It should be emphasised here that the river is drawn in so broadly and so clearly that this too reinforces the impression of dominance – quite in keeping with a local view that places this river as the “king of rivers” (as Gorgoryos calls it) at the centre of the geographical narratives, while other, somewhat smaller rivers disappear from the map altogether.⁷ 

Another aspect is the numerous provinces and central settlements of the highlands indicated on the map. Although these are highly inexact in terms of their distances from one another, it is precisely their proportions that show the oral mediation process and the narrative about relationships between these regions and localities. Beyond the Märäb River, “Midra Bahr” (Midrä Baḥr, “Sea Land”) is marked on the map, with a detailed explanation. According to Ethiopian tradition, a so-called “king of the sea” (the Baḥr[ä] Nägash, also mentioned on the map) sat there as Ethiopian governor or prince, this title to be read roughly as “ruler of the sea-land”: in local linguistic practice, the word baḥr (actually “sea”) is understood as the “land on the way to the coast”. Its dominion, which we actually find confirmed in historical records for specific periods, extends on the map beyond the border river Märäb.⁸

On the cis-side of the Märäb is again the city of “Aksum” (Axum), the city of the Metropolitan of Ethiopia and the city of kings (but not capital). Somewhat to the east of this, which corresponds entirely to the direction perceived when starting the travel, is another sign for a fortified settlement with the inscription “Assa”⁹, referring to ^cAsäm, the name of one of the main rivers of the Tigrayan princely town of ^cAdwa (and just east of it Frémona, the Portuguese episcopal see). This is remarkable because it corresponds to the purely oral way of talking about a locality that is still common today in rural contexts: settlements are often named after a stretch of river on which they lie, or after a religious site (for this, further to the north-east, “Alleluja”, the old Christian name of the monastery of Däbrä Dammo), or even after a larger region, of which they are the political centre. For example, if a settlement is the seat of the governor, people living in adjacent regions would refer to it simply by the name of the region, not by its actual name. This phenomenon is also found on the map: a settlement east of ^cAdwa is called “Agamja” (^cAgamä), a term which refers in fact to a traditionally quite autonomous region, still called so today, with its own princes and its own princely seat. The proper name of this settlement was ^cAddigrat, established as a political centre since the 17^th century that was already well known to Gorgoryos.

Geographically drawn in the wrong place (obviously a communication problem, perhaps influenced by earlier Portuguese errors) is “Auzen vel Tigre” (for Ḥawzén, with the missing H typical of the Portuguese and Amharic accents). But what is remarkable about this formula is that it reflects a typical local way of speaking: Ḥawzén had been the seat of the Prince of Tigray (“Tigré” in Amharic, i.e. in the language of Gorgoryos, as it is also found here on the map) since the Middle Ages; thus, the main town could simply be called Tigray itself in local speech. However, it should be noted that this is a purely oral use and does not correspond to the toponymy considered binding in formal language use. The map is thus a clear testimony to oral exchange: informal toponyms of everyday language use can be found on this map.

If we go back to the bird’s-eye view, but remain in the same area, it is striking how much a region directly south of Aksum stands out. It is depicted in an oval with its own borders, also visually highlighted by larger mountains: “Temben” (Tämbén) and to the east of it the somewhat smaller “Sahart” (Saḥarti), both particularly old names of regions found in Tigray. A little further east, directly behind an exaggeratedly high mountain, there are the “Doba”, already mentioned above. This refers to the then autonomous ethnic group of the Doba^ca, who lived on the edge of Ethiopia’s dominion. The separation by the mountain is again a division derived from the oral narrative, representing inaccessibility – owed on the one hand to the (moderately) mountainous area, but much more to the political autonomy of the Doba^ca.

Through the mountain, but also through the visual connection of the Doba^ca to the eastern lowlands that follow it, their border position is clearly recognisable on this map: a political-cultural fact, much less a geographical one. The geographical prominence of the entire province of Tämbén, in turn, has political-territorial reasons itself: due to the Wer^ci River (not marked here) and its seclusion in its own mountainous area, Tämbén has retained a high degree of autonomy until almost the present day; it was ruled by its own dynasty and only occasionally united with Tigray proper, i.e. today’s central Tigray.

If we follow further demarcations on the map, especially in the Ethiopian-Sudanese border area north of the Nile and Lake T’ana, we also see the reproduction of apparently oral descriptions of borders abruptly separating the Ethiopian highlands from the Sudanese lowlands. In short, here we see Gorgoryos speaking of territories and Ludolf attempting to put this into a flat, two-dimensional map (based on somewhat older, much less accurate Portuguese traditions) – a collaborative work that reproduces the moment of communication and an initial, incomplete transfer of knowledge.

The map is a testimony to the contrast between the Christian empire of the highlands (characterised by numerous settlements marked on the map) and other, supposedly “savage”, territories (characterised in the popular Ethiopian imagination by roaming peoples who are given pejorative and generalising names). This too is a form of local knowledge. Ludolf reflects in his writings, again as a result of constant exchange, these very concepts, but without dissolving them. The map presented here is, in short, both a repertory of genuine local territorial knowledge and practice and a document of a specific Ethiopian view of the “other”.

References

Abdussamad H. Ahmad: Trading in Slaves in Bela-Shangul and Gumuz, Ethiopia. Border Enclaves in History, 1897–1938, in: Journal of African History 40 (1999), pp. 433–446.

Fesseha Berhe: The Ethnogenesis of the Doba^ca in Tigray, PhD Thesis (Mekelle University, Mekelle/École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) [forthcoming].

Ludolf, Hiob: A New History of Ethiopia. Being a Full and Accurate Description of the Kingdom of Abessinia, Vulgarly, Though Erroneously Called the Empire of Prester John. In Four Books […] with the Life of Gregorius Abba, London 1684.

Ludolf, Hiob: Ad suam Historiam Aethiopicam antehac editam commentarius in quo multa breviter dicta fusius narrantur: contraria refelluntur: atque hac occasione praeter res Aethiopicas multa autorum, quaedam etiam S. Scripturae loca declarantur, Frankfurt 1691.

Oba-Smidt, Chikage: Embedded in Oral History. The Historicity of the Migration Traditions of Oromo groups in Ethiopia (the Baarentuu-Oromo in North-Eastern Ethiopia) [forthcoming].

Russell, Michael: Nubia and Abyssinia. Comprehending Their Civil History, Antiquities, Arts, Religion, Literature, and Natural History, New York 1833.

Smidt, Wolbert G. C.: Ludolf und seine äthiopischen Lehrer in Europa. Der Gelehrte Abba Gorgoryos als Mitbegründer der Äthiopistik als wissenschaftliche Ethnographie, in: Asaph Ben-Tov, Jan Loop and Martin Mulsow (eds.): Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben. Oriental Studies, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa, 1650–1700, Leiden 2024, pp. 177–237.

Smidt, Wolbert G. C.: Nile. The Nile in History. Imagination and Exploration, in: Siegbert Uhlig et al. (eds.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 3, Wiesbaden 2007, pp. 1177–1181.

Tanner, Matěj: Die Gesellschafft Jesu biss zur vergiessung ihres Blutes gegen den Götzendienst, Unglauben, und Laster, für Gott den wahren Glauben, und Tugendten in allen vier Theilen der Welt streitend: das ist: Lebens-Wandel, und Todtes-Begebenheit der jenigen, die auss der Gesellschafft Jesu umb verthätigung Gottes, des wahren Glaubens, und der Tugenden, gewaltthätiger weiss hingerichtet worden, Prag 1683.

Ziegler, Jean, Uriel da Costa: A demain Karl. Pour sortir de la fin des idéologies, Paris 1991.

1. Caption on the map: “Jobi Ludolfi Habessinia seu Abassia, Presbyteri Johannis Regio […] plurimisq. locis passim insertis ex Gregorii Habess. fidâ relatione” (see fig. 3). [↩]
2. “Behold, the lion that is of the seed of Judah, the root of David, hath overcome to open the book, and to break the seven seals thereof”. Cf. also Gen. 49:9, where Judah is called a young lion. [↩]
3. However, another version of this map can in a way really be called “African”: We are in the possession of a much earlier, more schematic manuscript map of Ethiopia in Ge’ez, kept in the collection of one of Ludolf’s scholarly correspondants, whose publication is currently in preparation by Martin Mulsow, Jan Loop and the author. That map – in an African language – was the first result of Ludolf’s cooperation with Abba Gorgoryos. [↩]
4. Here, I am using a concept of my teacher Jean Ziegler, who placed the “savoir savoureux” at the centre of all exchange and research – this “savoir” (knowledge) of the natives who grew up in a culture is to be systematically distinguished from book knowledge. Ziegler describes this concept as follows: “Roger Bastide speaks of the ‘savoury knowledge’ that is transmitted through the singular encounter between people of different experience, culture and memory. Alongside and below scholarly culture, there is – powerful as an underground river – popular culture. It is constituted by crossbreeding, by the mixing of peoples, by contingent, conjunctural, unpredictable exchanges of each person’s infraconceptual perceptions” (Ziegler/da Costa 1991: 89). [↩]
5. This roughly corresponds, also in its massively degrading tendency, to the various meanings of the American term “nigger”. Citing Gorgoryos, Ludolf gives an exceedingly stereotypical and crudely pejorative description of such lowlanders: “There are yet many Barbarous Nations, that wander about in the sandy Deserts, having no knowledge of God, and living without any Government or Laws […]: Savage, Naked, flat Nos’d, and blubber Lipp’d. Agriophagi, devourers of wild Beasts, or rather Pamphagi, All-eaters, for they feed on Dragons, Elephants, and whatever they meet in their way. The most sordid and vilest of Human Creatures. Gregory described them to me […] they feed upon Serpents Flesh; their Language being only an inarticulate Noise” (Ludolf 1684: 74). [↩]
6. Cf. also Ludolf 1684: 85, citing Gorgoryos among others: “the more Westerly are […] call’d Bertuma Galla, those that lye to the East, Boren Galla”. The Bareentuu and Booranaa could be understood as genealogically defined, ethno-political confederations of otherwise quite autonomous individual groups. The great autonomy and different political and economic structures of the individual Oromo groups made a dominant, all-encompassing ethnonym unnecessary for a long time. The general term “Ilmaa Or[o]maa” (in the early European literature: “Ilmorma”) has only been documented among ethnographically working researchers and missionaries since the early 19^th century. This self-designation was used by many of these groups, apparently in several dialectal variants, of which the more modern denomination Oromo is to be regarded as another variant, in the sense of “belonging to the Orma”. In the 16^th/17^th centuries, the Oromo in various subgroups had made massive inroads into Ethiopian border areas and old heartlands (as described by Gorgoryos, cf. Ludolf 1684: 83–86), with the result that some of these areas became independent of Ethiopia. [↩]
7. On the Nile in the oldest Ethiopian tradition, see Smidt 2007. Gorgoryos also reported on the Nile: on 20 October 1657, he wrote down a detailed description of the Nile for Ludolf, which reproduces in precise form the narrative established in Ethiopia (quoted here in the English translation, Ludolf 1684: 36f.): “The Course of the Nile is like a Circle; it encompasses Gojam, but so, that it never returns back to its Head, making directly to Sennar. And therefore Gojam lies always upon the right hand of Nile; but all the other Kingdoms of Ethiopia, as well those that lye near, as those at a distance, remain still upon the left. As it flows along, it takes in all the Rivers great and small with several Torrents, as well Foreign as Habessinian, which by that general Tribute, acknowledge him [= the Nile] their King; who having thus muster’d together all the Waters of Ethiopia, jocundly takes his leave, and proceeds on his Journey, like a Hero, according to the Command of his Creator, to drench the Fields of thirsty Egypt”. The description then goes into far more detail, but what is most important here is that the Ethiopian idea of a circle drawn by the Nile, perfectly encircling Gojjam and taking in all the rivers of Ethiopia, becomes clear – and all this according to a plan of the Creator, who thus also provides for the people of Egypt. In the further description, he mentions all the Ethiopian provinces past which it flows, and whose rivers it takes up – including the shanqäla (in English translation “Shankelites”) of the lowlands already mentioned above, through whose land it flows after descending from the Ethiopian highlands. From the east, the Nile then joins the Täkkäzé (“Tacazè”), the river that comes from Tigray and joins the Nile in Sudan. A curiosity should be pointed out here, which hints at a most interesting aspect of the African-European exchange of knowledge: European maps at the time show the Niger, which flows through all of Africa to the west, as a tributary of the Nile; this can easily be seen as a European misunderstanding of the fragmentary news from Central Africa, but Gorgoryos himself points out in his conversation with Ludolf that the Nile divides before arriving in Egypt and that one arm flows to the west. Here, then, it is an Ethiopian concept of Nile geography that confirms the misinformation about the Niger. [↩]
8. In territorial-political practice, the Märäb River was usually the most important border between the “Meerland” (sea-land) and Tigray, although the situation fluctuated until colonial times; an impressive source confirming this is Russell 1833: 104f., documenting the state of knowledge at the time based on earlier research reports from the region, which confirms this view and also fits well with Ludolf-Gorgoryos’ map: Russell also separates the “Midrebahrnagash” (with respective sub-provinces from Massawa via Zula, Wi^ca and Amphila on the coast to “Madir”, i.e. the adjacent highlands) and “Tigre” (with sub-provinces such as ^cAgamä, Indärta, Tigray “proper” to Wofla, Lasta and Wälqayt), thus naming the larger territorial units. [↩]
9. This spelling was first established in Portuguese sources, apparently in reproduction of the Portuguese accent of the Jesuits living there when pronouncing the toponym ^cAsäm. As an example of the strong dependence on Portuguese literature of Ethiopian toponyms’ spellings also established in the German-speaking world, reference should be made to the following work on the mission of the Jesuits from Ludolf’s time, in which many of the places and landscapes from the map also appear: Tanner 1683 (details on this in Smidt 2024: 212). [↩]

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