Hayq

Lake Hayq's island monastery of Istifanos was a centre of Ethiopian Christian learning and patronage. Its thirteenth-century development was associated with the abbot Iyasus Mo'a and the restored Solomonic monarchy. An illustrated Gospel commissioned by the abbot accumulated later notes recording land, possessions and transactions, linking monastic learning to material obligations and relationships with the surrounding world.

The lake did not make the community invulnerable. In 1531 Ahmad ibn Ibrahim's forces built rafts to cross to the island. The monks surrendered valuables to save their home from destruction, and the monastery was plundered. Surviving manuscripts and a fifteenth-century icon nevertheless preserve parts of a tradition that endured warfare and the loss of wealth.