Manuel João Mendes Silva Ramos (born 1960) is a Portuguese anthropologist, artist and civil rights advocate.
Ramos has maintained a parallel career as draftsman and illustrator, working for Portuguese periodicals, frequently with writer Rui Zink [pt].
Since the death of his eldest daughter in a car crash in 1998,[4] he has participated in the cause of road risk reduction and self-mobilization for more just and sustainable forms of mobility.
Ramos' publications in the area of Anthropology include studies in Christian symbolism and mythology (his Essays in Christian Mythology: the metamorphoses of Prester John, first published in Portuguese in 1998, were translated in English in 2006) and research in Ethiopian oral traditions (Histórias Etíopes: Diário de Viagem, 2000, new edition in 2010).
With historians Isabel Boavida and Hervé Pennec, he published a scholarly edition of the História da Etiópia of Jesuit father Pedro Páez, first in Portuguese in 2008, in the collection of Obras Primas da Literatura Portuguesa, and then at the Hakluyt Society's third series' collection.