GONDAR “AFRICA’S CAMELOT”
which affords a distant view of Lake Tana, 4 smaller towers, and a battlemented parapet. Archangel Michael himself stood before the large wooden gates with a flaming sword drawn. GONDAR is a Royal and ancient historical city of Ethiopia and is in the list of UNESCO’S World Heritage Sites. It stands at an elevation of 2,300m on a basaltic ridge from which streams flanking the town flow to Lake Tana, 24klm south and was the capital of Ethiopia from 1632 to 1855. It is the home of many Emperors and Princess who lead the country from the 12 th c to the last decade of the 20 th c. To mention just a few, Emperor Suseneos, Emperor Fasiledes, Empress Mentwab, Iyasu I, Tewodros II, Empress Taitu. It is the home of the highest mountain in Ethiopia, Ras Dashen, and the Simien Mountains National Park. Nestled in the foothills of the Simien Mountains in NW Ethiopia, became the capital of Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Fasilidas (1632-1667), who built the first of a number of castle-like palaces to be found here. He established a tradition that was followed by most of his successors, whose buildings greatly enhanced the city’s grandeur. Until the 16 th c, the Solomonic Emperors of Ethiopia usually had no fixed capital town, instead living in tents in and temporary royal camps as they moved around their realms, while their family, bodyguard and retinue devoured surplus crops and cut down nearby trees for firewood. Gondar, which rose to prominence after Ethiopia went through a long period without a fixed capital, emerged in the 17 th c as the country’s largest settlement. The city was an important administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural center. It was famous for its sophisticated aristocratic life, its church scholarship, and its extensive trade, which took its merchants to Sudan and the port of Massawa, as well as to the rich lands south of the Blue Nile. Gondar was also noted for the skill of its many craftsmen. The city retained its pre-eminence until the middle of the 19 th c, when Emperor Tewodros II moved his seat of Government to Debre Tabor and later to Mekdela. As a result, Gondar declined greatly in importance and was subsequently looted in the 1880s by the Sudanese Dervishes. By the early 19 th c the city was a mere shadow of its former self. Most of Gondar’s famous castles and other imperial buildings nevertheless survived the ravages of time and together constitute one of Ethiopia’s most fascinating antiquities. FASIL GHEBBI - GONDAR’S CASTLE dubbed the Ethiopian Camelot, is not a single castle, but instead is the name given to the entire complex of castles and palaces in the area. The oldest and most impressive of Gondar’s imperial structures is the two-storied palace of Emperor Fasilidas, built of roughly hewn brown basalt stones held together with mortar. Said to have been the work of an Indian architect, the building-has a flat roof, a rectangular tower in the south-west corner, It is easy to imagine the intrigue and pageantry that took place back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Gondar, then the Ethiopian capital, was home to a number of emperors and warlords, courtiers and kings. One only has to stroll through the banqueting halls and gaze down from the balconies of the many castles and palaces here to drift back into a long-ago world of battles and court conspiracies. Although Gondar was by any definition a city, it was not a melting pot of diverse traditions, nor Ethiopia’s window to the larger world, according to Donald Levine. “It served rather as an agent for the quickened development of the Amhara’s own culture. And thus it became a focus of national pride not as a hotbed of alien custom and immorality, as they often regard Addis Ababa today, but as the most perfect embodiment of their traditional values. DEBRE BIRHAN SELASSIE CHURCH On top of a hill at the edge of Gondar lies what is considered one of the most important churches in Ethiopia. Debre Birhan Selassie was built by Emperor Eyasu II (also known as Birhan Seged, “He to Whom the Light Bows”) in the 17 th c. It was named Debre Birhan, “Mountain of Light,” after the Emperor’s nickname, as well as in honor of the church of the same name in Shewa. Nearly every inch of the church’s interior has been beautifully painted. 80 cherubic angels look down from the ceiling while saints and demons line its walls. It was miraculously spared in the Mahdist War of the 1880’s when, according to legend, a swarm of bees held off the invading soldiers, and the The ceiling, with its rows and rows of winged cherubs representing the omnipresence of God, draws most eyes. There’s space for 135 cherubs, though 13 have been erased by water damage. Aside from the cherubs the highlights have to be the devilish Bosch-like depiction of hell. A large stone wall with 12 rounded towers surrounds the compound and these represent the 12 apostles. The larger 13 th tower (entrance gate) symbolizes Christ and is shaped to resemble the Lion of Judah. Fasil Ghebbi and the other remains in Gondar city demonstrate a remarkable interface between internal and external cultures, with cultural elements related to Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Jews and Muslims, expressed not only through the architecture of the sites but also through the handicrafts, painting, literature and music that flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After its decline in the 19 th c, the city of Gondar continued to be an important commercial and transport hub for NW Ethiopia. GONDAR IN <strong>THE</strong> 20 TH CENTURY After the military occupation of Ethiopia by the Kingdom of Italy in 1936, Gondar was further developed under Italian occupation, and the Comboni Missionaries established in 1937 the Latin Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of Gondar, which would be suppressed after its only prefect’s death in 1951. During the Second World War, Mussolini’s Italian forces made their last stand in Gondar in November 1941, after Addis Ababa fell to British forces six months before. The area of Gondar was one of the main centers of activity of Italian guerrilla against the British forces until summer 1943.