The presentation of the interventions will be carried out by Dr. Victor M. Fernández (Complutense University of Madrid), director of the archaeological project of the Jesuit missions in Ethiopia during 2006-2014. Also present will be Mr. Wenceslao Soto Artuñedo, S.J., director of the Spanish Archive of the Society of Jesus (Alcalá de Henares).
Dr. Irene Seco, Head of the Heritage Service of the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation), will talk about the cultural and heritage cooperation projects that this Spanish agency develops in Ethiopia, while the conference on Father Pedro Páez Xaramillo will be given by D. Javier Reverte , writer and author of the missionary biography.
On April 21, 1618, the missionary Pedro Páez Xaramillo visited the small spring from which the waters of the Blue Nile emerge before passing through Lake Tana, thus becoming the first European to verify its existence. Later, he described all the characteristics of it in a whole chapter of his History of Ethiopia , one of the most important sources to learn about the so-called kingdom of Prester John during the Middle Ages. .
Although the aforementioned book was not published until the 20th century, the manuscript was copied and the information was incorporated into global knowledge through the works of the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher and the plans by the Venetian Vincenzo Coronelli, before the end of the 17th century, thus putting an end to an unknown that had intrigued geographers and historians since ancient times.
The event scheduled at the National Archaeological Museum intends to remember the facet of Páez as one of the main European explorers of the Modern Age.