Seminar – “The Megalithic Landscape in the Gurage Zone of Central Ethiopia”
SEMINAR/SÉMINAIRE
Seminar – “The Megalithic Landscape in the Gurage Zone of Central Ethiopia”
By Worku Derara
Friday 28th February, 3 PM
At CFEE Library Berhanu Abebe, 50m before the entrance of Jan Meda
The CFEE is pleased to collaborate in 2025 with the FMSEH webinar series on the annual theme: A Century of Megalithic Research in the Horn of Africa
The second lecture of this series is given by Dr. Worku Derara, in presential at CFEE, or online by zoom. The link to access the online presentation:
https://univ-grenoble-alpes-fr.zoom.us/j/93863169829?pwd=2a4d0PdiUs0T2MAwaMDNTLMPdKN0MI.1
Worku Derara is an Assistant Professor in Archaeology at Addis Ababa University’s Department of Archaeology & Heritage Management. He has collaborated on numerous archaeological and ethnoarcaheological research projects in northwestern, western and eastern Ethiopia. Recently he directed a project on “Documenting Materiality and Indigenous Knowledge of the Kambata,” an ethnic group living in South-central Ethiopia. Currently, he is the PI of “Historic Buildings and Sites of Memories in Western Ethiopia,” a project funded by Addis Ababa University.
The Gurage zone of the Central Ethiopia Regional State is a hotspot of enset culture and megalithic landscape. The most famous of the megaliths in the region, the Tiya Stelae Field in Soddo, is a sui generis prehistoric site that joined UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1980.
Current knowledge on the distribution, type, and chronology of the megaliths in this part of Ethiopia is based entirely on surveys and excavations undertaken since the 1920s. Most of this work took place in Soddo, where the vast majority of megalithic art is found. Concomitant to this, the earliest known authenticated example of inquiry into megalithic art in the area is as old as the history of research on megaliths of the area itself.
This presentation highlights the typochronology of megaliths and the symbolic aspect of the corpus of megalithic art in the context of the well-studied and least-known sites in the area, thereby focusing on ‘generally accepted hypotheses’ and alternate views related to the subject.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Secrétaire Scientifique (20 février 2025). Seminar – “The Megalithic Landscape in the Gurage Zone of Central Ethiopia” UN ŒIL SUR LA CORNE / AN EYE ON THE HORN. Consulté le 24 avril 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/13cm3