Threats to Cultural Monument in Ethiopia: Based on Evidences of Causes and Problems of Some Forgotten Rock-cut Churches

• Published in: Journal of heritage management 2019-06, Vol.4 (1), p.85-102
• Main Author: Demissie, Tsegaye Ebabey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 16th century; Architecture; Costing; Cultural heritage; Degradation; Demolition; Destruction; Deterioration; Islam; Rainfall; Recycling; Remote areas; Threats
• ISSN: 2455-9296; 2456-4796
• DOI: 10.1177/2455929619866301

Ethiopia is endowed with incredible rock-cut churches embodying great architectural, aesthetic and artistic significance built over its past. However, these priceless cultural antiquities are frequently confronted with different threats. This study aims to explore potential threats and associated impacts evidencing with least known and threatened rock-cut churches. Several rock-cut churches are subjected to different problems such as stripping, cracking, degradation, breaking and demolition that badly affected their significant values. Different natural and anthropogenic agents are responsible for these problems. Recycling rainfall and sunlight, among others, are the major natural factors that caused deterioration or destruction of various rock-cut churches. Uninformed local intervention, one of the major anthropogenic factors, not only has failed to restore lost structural, architectural and aesthetic elements of the rock-cut churches but it also has replaced original rock-cut features by culturally unfamiliar contemporary buildings. Previous war and conflict, the sixteenth-century war of the Islamic Sultanates against the Christian Kingdom, for instance, were also the other man-made causes of destruction, abandonment and plundering of many rock-cut churches that are evidenced in different areas. Above all, the absence of governmental attention towards heritage management is costing the country with a profound loss of its incredible built heritages particularly in the remote areas. All the evidences presented in this study are indicators that the country’s cultural heritage management is at its critical situation which needs the engagement of concerned stakeholder to preserve the country’s past.