The future of past tense: a cultural and studies centre for Gondar

Abstract

The town of Gondar, in Northern Ethiopia, has won the prestigious status of a classified UNESCO world heritage site, in 26 October 1979, mainly because in it stands the castle compound locally known as the Atsie Fasil Ghimb. This palace compound encapsulates much of the country’s political and religious history between the mid-seventeenth century and the mid-nineteenth century, when Gondar was the capital of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia.