According to abbreviationfinder, Addis Ababa is the capital and economic center of Ethiopia, in the middle of the country on a plateau 2,420 meters above sea level, (2015) 3.3 million residents, as well as a special administrative area with the rank of regional state (527 km 2).
Seat of the African Union (AU) and the UN Economic Commission ECA, seat of the head (Patriarch-Catholicos) of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as the Metropolitan of the Ethiopian Catholic Church united with Rome; University (founded in 1961), Technical College, Ethiopian Museum and National Museum, Congress Center. Addis Ababa is the country’s largest industrial location; the largest market in terms of its size on the African mainland claims its own district in the west; Railway line to Djibouti on the Red Sea; international Airport.
The cityscape is characterized by the direct juxtaposition of large modern buildings (Afrikahalle, 1961; Stadthalle, 1965) and the settlement of huts or slums.
Addis Ababa emerged from an army camp of the later Emperor Menelik II; construction of the city began in 1897.
In the Peace of Addis Ababa (October 16, 1896) Italy, which was striving for a great colonial empire in Africa, had to recognize the independence of Ethiopia after a lost war (1895/96).
Ethiopian art
Ethiopian art, the art in what is now Ethiopia.
It can be divided into the two large areas of Christian and non-Christian art.
Christian art: The introduction of Christianity in AD 327 ushered in a rich tradition of icon and book painting as well as church decoration. The earliest architectural evidence (5th century AD) include the stone steles, remains of palace and tomb complexes, and the stone thrones with inscriptions in Aksum. The partly monolithic rock churches of Lalibela, monasteries in Tanasee as well as palace and church buildings from the 17th to 19th centuries became famous. Century in Gonder. From the end of the 19th century, Ethiopian architecture gradually caught up with international developments. a. in Addis Ababa.
The painting was under Coptic-Byzantine influence. The oldest surviving illuminated manuscript is the Tetra Gospels of the Abba Garima monastery (10th / 11th centuries). A particularly large number of manuscripts are from the heyday of Ethiopian book illumination, the 14th / 15th centuries. Century. From the 16th century onwards, western European influences were also evident. Wall painting (e.g. in churches of Lalibela and Gonder, 15th century) is, like icon painting, stylistically related to miniature painting. – From the early 20th century onwards, profane painting that was dependent on tradition developed (depictions of emperors, battle pictures, everyday scenes, legends). It forms a branch of folk art, which is also represented with silver and brass work as well as leather, wicker and pottery. Afewerk Tekle (* 1932), A. Boghossian, called Skunder, G. K. Desta, Abdel-Rahman M. Sherif (* 1939) and others. chose new means of expression for traditional topics or broke with tradition and embarked on completely new paths in terms of form and content.
Non-Christian art: wood and stone sculptures of ancient African tradition can be found especially in southern Ethiopia. In the Gurage area, south of Addis Ababa, prehistoric megalithic statues with relief representations were discovered; also further south at the Darassa and Gudji. Their stone setting, however, has the character of stelae and is the “Akwanshi” from the Ekoi area comparable in eastern Nigeria. In the Sidama area in the south there are ten thousand gigantic phallic stone settings. With the Arusi, who belong to the largest ethnic groups in the southeast of the Ethiopian highlands, these prehistoric megalithic forms live on to the present day. They erect assigned tombstones that are brightly painted, v. a. with symbolic signs; its meaning is not known. Perhaps they relate to the deceased’s merits. Wood carvings are made by the Konso (Omo peoples) and Gato made; Particularly impressive are memorial steles in the form of pole-shaped figures for important people and for the enemies killed by the deceased. They have an oval head, which is adorned with a pointed or helmet-shaped hat and other attributes that characterize the social position of the sitter. While the Gato steles are made exclusively for the deceased, at the Konso these are also made during the lifetime of the person concerned, occasionally by the person concerned.
Ethiopian literature
Ethiopian literature, written in the South Semitic language Geez, predominantly Christian literature.
It can be divided into two main epochs (from the 4th / 5th to the end of the 7th century and from the 13th to the 20th century).
The first period includes the inscriptions from the kingdom of Aksum as well as works translated from Greek (in addition to the Bible, pseudepigraphic writings, some of which, such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, are only fully preserved in Geez), as well as the patristic compendium of »Kerellos«, the »Physiologus« and monastic texts.
The second period includes numerous works that were conveyed through Arabic, such as the “Senodos” as a collection of church regulations, liturgical texts and hagiographic writings, such as the “Senkessar”, into which local legends of saints were also inserted. The “Kebra Negest” (“Glory of the Kings”) tells of the descent of the Ethiopian ruling house from King Solomon, the “Fetha Negest” (“Right of Kings”) served as a code of law. In terms of secular writings, the chronicles of the Ethiopian kings are worth mentioning. The confrontation with Islam and the Portuguese missionaries produced a theological controversial literature. In poetry, v. a. to name the genre of Kene, which is still cultivated today (especially cultivated by clergy and used in the liturgy, with a complicated meter, elaborate rhetoric and numerous allusions). Until the 20th century, philological works and occasionally also chronicles were written in Geez. Amharic has become the dominant literary language of the present.
