Authors

A significant share of texts available in Ge'ez were translated (from Greek or from Arabic). The names of translators are largely unknown; a most famous exception is the fourteenth-century Coptic metropolitan of Ethiopia, Salama II. Salama, or possibly a team of translators working during his tenure (1348-1388), produced a revised translation of the Old Testament and translated a number of hagiographical, homiletic, and liturgical texts.

As for the texts originally composed in Ge'ez, very few authors of religious medieval Ethiopic literature are known by name. It was a common practice to see such texts as inspired from above, and as a continuation of an earlier greater Christian tradition, so that no names were inscribed in the original colophons. In some cases, authors were singled out later and came to be identified by the titles of the works they are believed to have authored (e.g., Retu'a Haymanot in the fourteenth century, or Mazmura Krestos in the eighteenth century). Those authors who are certain to have authored at least some works are often credited with many more than those actually signed (e.g. Giyorgis of Sagla and the Emperor Zar'a Ya'qob in the fifteenth century).

The situation is different for documentary and historiographic texts; the royal chronicles, for example, were often written down by the king's secretary, the sahafe te'ezaz, whose names are often known. 

Paying close attention to stylistic features of texts and above all the paratexts and the factual information provided by the main and additional texts it should be possible, if not identify authors, then assign more texts transmitted in the manuscripts described in the course of the project to particular historical and geographical contexts.