Tabot
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Tabot (Ge'ez ታቦት tābōt, sometimes spelled tabout), is a Ge'ez (as well as Ethio-Semitic) word referring to a replica of the Tablets of Law, onto which the Biblical Ten Commandments were inscribed, used in the practices of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Tabot can also refer to a replica of the Ark of the Covenant. The word tsellat (Ge'ez: ጽላት ṣallāt, modern ṣellāt) refers only to a replica of the Tablets, but is less commonly used. The tabot is normally six inches (15 cm) square, and may be made from alabaster, marble, or wood (see acacia). It is always kept in ornate coverings to hide it from public view. In an elaborate procession, the tabot is carried around the church courtyard on the feast day of that particular church's namesake, and also on the great Feast of T'imk'et (known as Epiphany or Theophany in Europe).
Although Ethiopia was never colonized, many tabots were looted by the British during the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia, which is a cause of anger among Ethiopians. During the looting of the Ethiopian capital of Magdala in 1868, British soldiers took hundreds of tabots. The return in February 2002 of one of these, discovered in the storage of St. John's Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, was a cause of public rejoicing in Addis Ababa.
[edit] Further reading
- C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford, "Appendix III, The Tabot" in their translation of Francisco Alvarez, The Prester John of the Indies (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961), pp. 543-8.
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