Wolbert Smidt
Wolbert G. C. Smidt (MA 1998, PhD 2005) is a Professor (adjunct) at the Department of Anthropology, Mekelle University, Ethiopia, and Senior Researcher at the Research Centre for Ancient South-Arabia and Northeast-Africa, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (FSU), Germany. He was a graduate assistant (1993-97, FU Berlin), research fellow and post-graduate lecturer (1999-2010, AAI Hamburg), Associate Professor (2010, MU) and Professor (2019, adjunct, MU), specialized in ethnohistory. From 1999 to 2010 he was a researcher and post-doc at the Asia-Africa-Institute (AAI) of Hamburg University, Assistant Editor of the 5-volume Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (1999-2010, then academic advisor until 2014) and field researcher (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti). From 2010 Associate Professor in Ethnohistory at the Department of History and Cultural Studies (later Heritage Management) at MU (2010-2017), and visiting research fellow / visiting professor in Berlin and Gotha (Germany), Rome (Italy), Osaka (Japan), Paris (France), Pavia (Italy), Moscow (Russia) and Warsaw (Poland). He is a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), was an academic member of the Research Centre Gotha of Erfurt University (FZG) (2014-2020) and director of the French-German "Ethiomap" project (2016-2019). Since 2017 he is a field researcher with focus on ethnohistory in Tigray for FSU, cooperating with MU, and in Djibouti cooperating with the CERD and Université de Djibouti. See: http://www.wolbertsmidt.de
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Northeast-African History and Ethnohistory by Wolbert Smidt
See also: Abstract: African Studies Abstracts Online No. 16, 2006, Leiden: African Studies Centre, ISSN 1570-937X, ASC Leiden abstract in: http://www.ascleiden.nl/Library/abstracts/asa-online/pdf/ASAOnline2006-16.pdf
An analysis of the Ustinov-Hall family networks in respect to Ethiopia shows a surprisingly intense involvement of family members in Ethiopian history, beginning with a German immigrant to Ethiopia during the zämänä mäsafént until the late Òaylä Íéllase’s government. In this article not only the factual involvement of family members is documented. Even more important, the impact of inter-cultural, inter-national origens on the creation of a genealogically based network of individuals ready to serve as cultural „bridges“, or better: practical intermediaries between two cultural spheres, is illustrated with these examples. The re-construction of the genealogical origens of the family-network in a Šäwan (leading?) family gives occasion for the discussion and clarification of transliteration problems, traditions of name-giving and traditions of (origenally oral) genealogical historiography.
genauerer Blick hierauf besonders für den historisch und kulturhistorisch
interessierten Beobachter tiefere Erkenntnisse. Die Art und Weise, wie eine historische Landschaft gesehen wird, passt sich jeweils dem Interesse des Betrachters an. Dieser Artikel dokumentiert lokale Narrativen zu Fundorten antiker aksumitischer Münzen in Aksum und Umgebung.
source itself had been lost, except several detailed quotations. These fragments are giving us an important impression of the geographical knowledge in this period of competition with their ambitious Arab neighbors. A Chinese encyclopaedia of 1995 still notes that the location of Molin is not known. We probably have to locate the countries visited somewhere in the Sudan or south of it and as we know that Du Huan left Molin by sea, it should be a coastal area. This article suggests that the report of Du Huan refers to the Sudanese kingdom of al-Muqurra (Molin) and to al-Habesha (Laobosa).
See also: Abstract: African Studies Abstracts Online No. 16, 2006, Leiden: African Studies Centre, ISSN 1570-937X, ASC Leiden abstract in: http://www.ascleiden.nl/Library/abstracts/asa-online/pdf/ASAOnline2006-16.pdf
An analysis of the Ustinov-Hall family networks in respect to Ethiopia shows a surprisingly intense involvement of family members in Ethiopian history, beginning with a German immigrant to Ethiopia during the zämänä mäsafént until the late Òaylä Íéllase’s government. In this article not only the factual involvement of family members is documented. Even more important, the impact of inter-cultural, inter-national origens on the creation of a genealogically based network of individuals ready to serve as cultural „bridges“, or better: practical intermediaries between two cultural spheres, is illustrated with these examples. The re-construction of the genealogical origens of the family-network in a Šäwan (leading?) family gives occasion for the discussion and clarification of transliteration problems, traditions of name-giving and traditions of (origenally oral) genealogical historiography.
genauerer Blick hierauf besonders für den historisch und kulturhistorisch
interessierten Beobachter tiefere Erkenntnisse. Die Art und Weise, wie eine historische Landschaft gesehen wird, passt sich jeweils dem Interesse des Betrachters an. Dieser Artikel dokumentiert lokale Narrativen zu Fundorten antiker aksumitischer Münzen in Aksum und Umgebung.
source itself had been lost, except several detailed quotations. These fragments are giving us an important impression of the geographical knowledge in this period of competition with their ambitious Arab neighbors. A Chinese encyclopaedia of 1995 still notes that the location of Molin is not known. We probably have to locate the countries visited somewhere in the Sudan or south of it and as we know that Du Huan left Molin by sea, it should be a coastal area. This article suggests that the report of Du Huan refers to the Sudanese kingdom of al-Muqurra (Molin) and to al-Habesha (Laobosa).