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12th Oct 2010 - Lecture - An Ethiopian Eden: Mapping Paradise in Ethiopia - Alessandro Scafi. Meeting of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society http://www.anglo-ethiopian.org/ 6:30pm, Lecture Theatre, Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB - Public lecture (all welcome) The various scenarios locating paradise in Ethiopia will be explored by discussing late mediaeval maps of the world. In the 15th century, some European mapmakers changed the traditional location of the Garden of Eden from eastern Asia to Africa. The African paradise was placed either at the tip of southern Africa (south of the equator) or in the Horn of Africa (at the equator), thus near Ethiopia. The Estense, or Catalan, world map of the 1450s presents one of these changes, featuring paradise in equatorial Africa, close to the Indian Ocean, not far from the legendary city of Arin (Civitasarim) that Indian and, later, Arabic geographical tradition also placed on the equator to mark the point exactly midway between the westernmost and easternmost meridians. The anonymous author of the so-called Genoese map, dating from 1457, put a textual comment on his map to explain that he was unwilling to commit himself to locating paradise in eastern Africa, when he was uncertain about the precise location. A variation on the theme is offered by the manuscript map of the world known as "Kunstmann II" (1502-1506), where the Garden of Eden is located in Africa, but this time on the Tropic of Capricorn. Prester John, the powerful priest thought to rule a vast Christian empire beyond Islam, was also relocated from Asia to Africa, and often depicted on maps near Ethiopia.
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