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Welcome to the home page of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society website

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Next Society Event: 24th Nov 2024 - Lecture - ONLINE - The Story of the Birillé - Ethiopia's Traditional Drinking Vessel - Ian Campbell

Online event starting at 14:00 GMT - Public lecture (all welcome to join).

Note - Register for the event on Eventbrite and you'll be emailed a Zoom link shortly before the event.


Ethiopia's celebratory honey-wine, known as tej, is unique to that country. The glass flask from which it is traditionally consumed, known as the birillé, is also unique to Ethiopia. Yet the origins of the birillé, the reasons for its distinctive shape, and the reasons why it has long been used exclusively for tej, have been largely lost in the mists of time.

In his illustrated lecture, Ian, who has been collecting and studying Ethiopia's birillés for 36 years, will attempt to dispel the mist and tell the fascinating story of the birillé, a story spanning centuries of Ethiopian history.

Although large-scale demolitions in Ethiopia's urban areas now threaten the survival of the old tej béts, Ian hopes that his presentation of the many different types of birillé, some of which can still be found in the mercatos and curio shops, will prove a useful guide for collectors of this increasingly scarce Ethiopian drinking vessel.


Ian Campbell, educated at the Universities of Leicester and Brunel, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an international development consultant. His career as a historian has been focused on research into Ethiopia since 1988. He has authored many scholarly papers on various aspects of Ethiopian cultural history from the medieval period to modern times, covering subjects as diverse as medieval saints, architecture, Orthodox iconography and traditional drinking vessels.

Ian divides his time between Kenya and Ethiopia and will be giving his talk online from Addis Ababa.


Please reserve your place soon to avoid disappointment.

Eventbrite Tickets - The Story of the Birillé by Ian Campbell


Illustration from a Miracles of Mary manuscript showing men drinking from birillé
Illustration from a 17th/18th century Miracles of Mary (ተኣምረ፡ማሪያም።) showing men being handed birillé to drink from.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ethiopien d'Abbadie Collection, Manuscript No. 114, f. 67v, s. 136 (detail)