Data base

The Encyclopaedia Aethiopica has certain requirements concerning the contents and the form of the articles. The former were presented in the section on Standard Entry Components, the latter are treated in detail below.

All articles have to be written in English. (It is only possible to hand in articles written in other European languages in exceptional cases. This possibility has, however, to be confirmed with the editorial board in advance.) The articles will be proofread by a native speaker.
The articles have to be submitted twofold: as a print-out and as a file; e-mail submissions are highly welcome.
No formatting should be applied in the submitted articles and only one font type should be used throughout the whole article. Please avoid syllable division.

All EAE articles must be supplied with a list of references. Bibliographies appear in smaller print, are however counted in as a rule when calculating the length category for the article. It is therefore important to select only the most relevant titles by answering these requirements:

• references should preferably include ‘sources’ and ‘literature’;


• ‘sources’ have the priority;


• preference lies with the literature which can be important for further research;


• bibliographic entries that contain further literature directions should be given preference and marked with the abbreviation “(Lit.)” following the full title;


• it is desired that selected literature should cover the whole sphere and not one specific aspect;


• the most recent publications should be referred to.

The EAE has strict rules for the format of references. The main are:

• the name of the author and the title of the book/article should always be given in full, neither non-deciphered name initials or omissions of the parts of the title are accepted (including the titles of journals/series - as they will be later abbreviated by the editorial team in accordance with the EAE abbreviation standard);


• the author’s/editor’s name should be capitalised and typed in small capitals (if your word processor does not offer this option please leave the letters small);


• the titles of books must be italicised; the titles of articles are non-italicised and in quotation marks;


• the name of the author and the title must be separated by a comma;


• if the title is the one of an article it must be separated from the name of the editor by a comma and the word “in:”;


• the place of publication must be given in its original orthography (e.g. “Roma” and not “Rome”);


• the title and the place of publication must be separated by a comma;


• the place of publication should be followed by the year of publication;


• if the publication appeared in Ethiopia/Eritrea please mention the calendar used for the dating (A.D. or A.M.);


• the place and the year are separated by a single space only;


• if the publication belongs to a series, the latter’s name and the volume number must follow in brackets after the year of publication;


• if the publication is an article, page numbers must be provided after the year of publication;


• if only part of the publication treats the subject dealt with in the article the corresponding page references must be provided;


• the next bibliographical entry must be separated from the previous one by a semicolon.

Example: ENRICO CERULLI, La letteratura etiopica, Firenze, Milano 31968 (Lit.); ERNST HAMMERSCHMIDT, Studies in Ethiopic Anaphoras. Second revised edition, Wiesbaden 1987 (Äthiopistische Forschungen 25); TADDESSE TAMRAT, “The abbots of Dabra Hayq”, in: Journal of Ethiopian Studies 8, 1970, 108-109; MORDECHAI ABIR , “Southern Ethiopia”, in: RICHARD GRAY - DAVID BIRMINGHAM (eds.), Pre-Colonial African Trade: Essays on Trade in Central and Eastern Africa before 1900, London 1970, 119–137.

As there will be no footnotes to EAE articles, the contextual references to sources or literature are to be integrated into the text as in the following examples:
… (Conti Rossini 1899);
… (Abraham Demoz 1972:134-142);
… as demonstrated by Strelcyn (1973:167) …
All publications referred to in an article must be provided in full in the bibliography attached.

3. Non-Latin Scripts

Articles may contain words or short passages in the following non-Latin scripts: Ethiopic, Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian (Estrangelo), Coptic, Greek and Cyrillic, but only if accompanied by transcription (italicised) and translation (in inverted commas) as illustrated here:


The rules for transcription and transliteration are presented in detail on our Transliteration page.

4. Illustrations

A limited number of charts, diagrams, drawings, maps, photos and the like will be inserted into the EAE provided they add essential information to the articles they accompany. The editors reserve the right to remove illustrations from an article, if judged unnecessary after consulting the EAE field specialists and the author. Submissions of graphic files in any formats are highly welcome.
Copyright of the illustrations remains the responsibility of the authors.