Ethiopia the land of Origins and the wonders of world Heritages

Deresse Ayenachew, Assistant Professor of history at Debre Berhan University, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is located in East Africa. It holds one of the ancient civilizations in Africa that dates back to the ancient pharaonic period. The commercial expedition of the queen Hatshepsut in 1500 B.C. is still remembered in her funerary temple. Above all, it has the longest state in Africa as it is the only country on the continent that was never colonized by the Colonial powers. Ethiopia defeated the Italian colonial power in 1896 at the Battle of Adwa. This victory awakened many freedom fighters like the black freedom movements in African from colonial oppressions in the Caribbean and USA. Therefore, it is the only country, which has its own writing system in Africa.

Ethiopia has diverse tangible and intangible heritages as it is the home of more than eighty-five languages. Ethiopia is one of the main custodians of human-origins fossils of the world including the pre-human hominid fossil of Lucy. UNESCO has nominated four types of Ethiopian heritage. The historical monuments, the landscapes and natural attraction, the intangible “Cultural Expressions Heritage” and the ” Memory of the World Heritage”. Ethiopia has already contributed twenty-six heritages to the outstanding values to the world: five historical monuments, a cultural landscape, two human-origins prehistoric sites, the spectacular natural landscapes of the Semien mountains , four picturesque “cultural expressions” and twelve “memory of the world register” (i.e. the documentary heritage).

The monuments constitute the Aksumite civilization(1st-7th century AD) vestiges like giant obelisks, churches and palaces. The astonishing Lalibela churches (registered 1978) were cut out of rock in the early 13th century. These churches are eleven in number and the design and skill of carving monuments from the rock-are wonders of the outstanding values of the world. The Fassil Ghebbi (palace) the city of Gonder established by Ethiopian king Fasilides (1632-1667), who restored the milliner Ethiopian Orthodox church after ten years of brutal wars against the Jesuit missionaries. King Fasilides exiled them from his kingdom and closed his diplomatic relation with European. He and his successor built luxurious palaces, churches, monasteries, public and private buildings surrounded by a 900m wall.

The Harrer wall was built in 1560s as a defensive wall from pastoral pressures. It is now a sacred place for Muslims that contains eighty-two mosques and 102 shrines. The enigmatic Tiya stelae site constitutes 36 monuments that includes 32 with engravings of motives and symbols that could imply fertility, farming, war etc. Most of them are not well deciphered. The “Cultural Expressions” are the Christian processional feasts of Maskal (the true Cross), epiphany and the traditional festivals of the Oromo of Gedda and the Fichee-Chemebelela of the Sidama people. The “Documentary Heritages” constitute religious books, history of Ethiopian kings, legal books of 14th -20th centuries the Geez (ancient state language) and Amharic (working language) languages. Books were written on vellums. diplomatic letters of 19th century kings.

To immortalize the symbol of African freedom, Ethiopia’s capital (Addis Ababa) is the seat of both the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.