Ethiopia - Lake Tana Island Monasteries and its Adjacent Wetland Natural and Cultural Heritages

 The Blue Nile and the Lake Tana, located in the North West highlands of Ethiopia in the Amara Regional State, have been a passion that has driven many explorers since historic times. In ancient Greece, the source of the Nile was considered as one of the earth’s most compelling mysteries. A Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote about the Nile extensively in 460 BC. He believed the river sprang from between two massive mountains. Likewise, Emperor Nero ordered his explorers to follow the Nile in search of its source. References to the Blue Nile can be found in the Old Testament of the Bible as the River Gihon, which “flows around the whole land of Cush” (as Ethiopia was known to the Hebrews).

This Crater Lake situated at 1800m ASL, is believed to have originated during the Pliocene due to the volcanic blocking of the Blue Nile River. It is categorized as Oligotrophic that covers 3000-36000km2 areas with a maximum depth 15m, 84km long and 64km wide.

Ethiopia - The Cultural Heritage of Yeha

The site of Yeha is located in a modern town hidden by the Adwa chains of mountains about 53 km to the west of the World Heritage Site of Aksum in Central Administrative zone of Tigray National Regional State in northern Ethiopia. It is located in a fertile basin with an altitude of 2150 m surrounded by spectacular volcanic mountain chains. It is a sacred place for the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, a living memory and religious practices of the same believers since the foundation of the Monastery of Abune Aftsie in the six century AD by one of the Nine Saints who came to the Northern Horn from the Europe and the Middle East in the same century for evangelization.

Ethiopia - Sacred Landscapes of Tigray

Tigray is home to 121 rock-hewn churches, believed to represent the single largest group of rock-hewn architecture in the world. Eighty of these churches, dating from the 5th to 14th centuries AD, as well as a small number of masonry-and-timber built churches, which include some of the oldest timber structures surviving worldwide (6th – 10th centuries AD), are located in the Sacred Landscapes of Tigray. The proposed serial nomination consists of three separate zones containing groups of rock-hewn churches in spectacular natural landscapes located in Mehakelegnaw and Misraqawi Zones inthe eastern half of Tigray Regional State, in the north of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The Sacred Landscape of Gheraltalies to the north west, consisting of a mountain massif to the west of Wukro, north of the regional capital of Mekele.The Sacred Landscape of Tembienis a mountain range lying to the south east of Gheralta and to the east of Mekele. The Sacred Landscape of Atsbi is an upland area to the east of Gheralta, on the eastern edge of the Ethiopian highlands, with flat-topped mountainsor hills and deep-incised valleys.A significant number of churches have wall-paintings and many retain treasures in the form of manuscripts, portable paintings and liturgical objects, including examples which have survived from the Middle Ages, especially in churches which form the core of living monasteries.

Ethiopia - Melka Kunture and Bachilt Archaeological Site

Melka Kunture, as it can be seen today, is part of a gently undulating landscape of the Upper Awash Valley, in the highlands of Ethiopia, at c. 2000m asl. All over the Upper Pliocene and the Pleistocene, tectonic activity led to the deepening of the demi-graben depression where the meandering paleo-Awash deposited alluvia. Through time, parts of the paleo-landscape were buried again and again, blanketed both by alluvial deposits, and by volcanic deposits produced by the nearby volcanoes. Accordingly, past surfaces, littered with archaeological implement and prehistoric animal remains, were covered by sediments and escaped destruction. There is now evidence by natural erosion on the banks of the little gullies of the local tributaries of the Awash.

Ethiopia - Dirre Sheik Hussein Religious, Cultural and Historical Site

Dine Sheik Hussein is located in the South Eastern part of Ethiopia. It is a 10th century Islamic centre of pilgrimage for people coming from different corners of the country, and Islamic communities of the Horn and the Middle East countries, twice a year. Dirre Sheik Hussein is a site of magnificent groups of buildings, monumental tombs and courts representing early medieval period of Islamic architecture and buildings of significant engineering qualities. The holy site was founded by the Islamic Saint known as Sheik Nur Hussein. He was one of the Nine Islamic venerated saints who entered Ethiopia (from South Arabia) along the eastern route via the walled city of Harar, which was recently inscribed as the World Heritage site of Ethiopia. Within the compounds and courts of Dine Sheik Hussien there are huge and magnificent mosques, shrines, residential buildings, artificial water ponds and other cultural spaces of Islamic religious processions and diverse ritual practices.