Horses graze in pastureland in the Simien Mountains, on the way from Debark to Buyit Ras.

Larger sizes available on the flickr page.

As we were driving along the China Road (between Bahir Dar and Woldia), we passed a spring and then turned to find this juxtaposition of farmed land, homes, and peaks in clouds. It was a welcome respite from the first part of the drive, which had been relentlessly clear and sunny.

The Evangelist portrait at the beginning of the Gospel of John, in the famous Kebran 1 Gospels, a notable example of manuscript arts held on the isle of Kebran in Lake Tana.

Christ with a golden-crossed halo receiving the Holy Spirit during Baptism. The Kebran 1 Gospels are one of only a few Ethiopian manuscripts known to use gold, and interested me for this reason and for the excellent depictions of scribes in the Evangelist portraits.

A view off the edge of the escarpment, along the road from Tenta to Gashena, Wollo Province, Ethiopia.

A farmstead in the rural village of Zigroa, outside of Mekane Eyesus (Iste) in South Gonder. The crop in the front is tef, the national staple crop of the highlands, with maize in the background. Eucaluptus, an introduced species, is the most common type of tree seen in Ethiopia, where it is used as a building supply, for firewood, shade and windbreaks.

Various colours of maize are on display in the market at Mekane Eyesus (Iste) in South Gonder.

The golden cross on the roof of Hayq Estifanos (The Church of St. Stephen at Hayq). Hayq Estifanos is a monastic community on a peninsula in Lake Hayq (Lake Lake) in the Wollo area of Ethiopia. It was an important early site of monasticism South of Tigray and today is a pleasant place birds sing and monks grow crops.

Recently, I had the good fortune to photograph Jackie and Ben’s wedding. We had fun taking formals in front of Osgoode Hall, before heading to a great Toronto institution–the chip truck, for their first meal as a married couple. Here’s the first instalment.

Signing the marriage contract. . .

Kissing in front of a beautiful rosebush in the gardens of Osgoode Hall. . .

Walking hand in hand. . .

Ben groaned when I motioned toward the pillars, anticipating that I wanted to take a peekaboo shot. I hope the result changed his mind. . .

My most interesting photos, as chosen by flickr’s interestingness algorithm. This set is automatically generated on a regular basis and a good introduction to what other people have liked in my work. It lacks coherence, as it is a mix of landscape and travel images.

Qes Deseta Altah was one of my informants for my dissertation research on Ethiopian scribal production. I took this portrait while meeting with him at his home in Gelawdios, outside of Bahir Dar.

Two men paddle a load of wood from the far shores of Lake Tana to the Bahir Dar area. Despite the great weight of the wood, which submerges the boat, waterlogged papyrus still remains very buoyant, and resists sinking.

A man paddles a large papyrus boat called a tanqwa on Lake Tana, shipping wood from the islands and shores to the Bahir Dar area. Despite the heavy load and low draft, papyrus boats continue to float, as waterlogged papyrus is still quite buoyant.

I realize this is not the most flattering picture, but I thought it went well as an illustration of one of my smaller investigations.

The actual strips of papyrus that I cut (by drawing the knife along the whole length of the  stem, as the ones where I attempted to ‘unroll’ it were an unsatisfactory mess).

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While in Bahir Dar, with access to the plentiful papyrus supplies of Lake Tana, I took the opportunity to do a little bit of experimental investigation into the debate on how papyrus was manufactured. Specifically, I was interested in the practicalities of Hendricks’ reconstruction of the method of papyrus manufacture by means of a ‘peeling’ or unrolling process, working the papyrus from the outside to the inside, all in one piece, which is then flattened in pressing. (see Hendricks, ‘Pliny, Historia Naturalis XIII, 74-82 and the Manufacture of Papyrus’ in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik XXXVII (1980) 121–136). I cut my way through a dozen stalks, and while I very easily got a handle on creating usable segments by means of a kind of shaving/splitting process with the knife, I found that the pith resisted being ‘peeled’ or unrolled in any way, and could not satisfactorily make the turns at the points of the triangular stem. In addition to being difficult, it was extremely slow, and while efficiency is not necessarily a particularly strong argument for reconstructing traditional production practices, I came away from the experiment with a greater appreciation for the feel of papyrus pith and the implications of different methods of cutting it. I am disinclined towards the Hendricks method at present, but see Wallert’s article (Wallert, ‘The Reconstruction of Papyrus Manufacture: A Preliminary Investigation’ in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 34, No. 1, (Feb., 1989), pp. 1-8), suggesting that there may be physical characteristics that can solve the question independent of the opinions of modern scholars engaging in experimental archaeology.

Bundles of a papyrus are stored against a building on a small farmstead outside of Bahir Dar, on Lake Tana. Papyrus is used for a variety of local purposes, most notably the papyrus boats called tanqwas.

A man rows home in the evening, with his nets and his catch of Nile Perch, in a papyrus boat called a tanqwa on Lake Tana, just outside of Bahir Dar.

Papyrus used as a building material: the wall of a light-duty building.