On Wednesday, after work, I went on what I can only call a museum crawl. Usually, people go on pub crawls where they travel from bar to bar enjoying the beverages, the sites and the music. But not me. Not today. Today, I jumped on a series of mini-buses and traveled from one museum to the next – actually only 2 in total – but in a row – so in my universe that constitutes a museum crawl - albeit a somewhat truncated one. I know - I am a geek.
First, I visited the National Museum of Ethiopia. The National Museum is spread out over four floors and houses a number of paintings, artwork, photographs, traditional attire, and tools. While the collection has some beautiful items and very interesting paintings, it was quite difficult to navigate the upper floors, because several of the works were not labeled and you had no idea what you were looking at! One of the major pieces on display on the main floor was Emperor Haile Selassie’s huge carved wooden throne.
However, the basement contained a very impressive paleontology exhibit which has various interactive displays and two remarkable casts of Lucy. Lucy is the name of a “fossilized hominid discovered in 1974” in a dried up lake in Hadar (northeast Ethiopia). One of the exhibits shows Lucy standing up and the other shows her lying down. The “stand up” exhibit is only about 3-4 feet tall and demonstrates that the hominid walked on two feet nearly 3.2 million years ago. Lucy is the “oldest and most complete hominid ever found.”
The actual Lucy fossils (upon which the casts of Lucy are based) are preserved in the basement of the museum. Lucy was named after the famous Beatles’ song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which was playing in the archaeologist’s camp when Lucy was found. However, Ethiopians prefer to call her by her Ethiopian name: Dinkanesh.
Second, I visited the Ethnological Museum located on the campus of Addis Ababa University and housed in one of the first palaces of Emperor Haile Selassie. After Emperor Selassie donated the palace to establish the University, he moved into the National Palace which now serves as the official residence of the President of Ethiopia. The Ethnological museum is much more easy to navigate than the National Museum and contains a number of interesting exhibits and galleries. There are the traditional robes of Queen Taitu, a stamp and currency collection, a collection of Ethiopian musical instruments (drums, flutes, xylophones, masinko etc.), the military uniforms and ceremonial attire of Emperor Haile Selassie, pendants, crosses / processional crosses, and traditional religious paintings. There were also a number of rooms preserved including the bedroom, the bathroom and the changing room of Emperor Haile Selassie, with the original furnishings. There was also an exhibit devoted to traditional “head-rests” which are artifacts made of wood that include a pedestal, a curved portion for the head and a base. These headrests were used in various regions of Ethiopia by women (instead of pillows) to preserve their hairstyles while they were sleeping. The headrests are really interesting but appear super uncomfortable.
[Source of Some Background Information and Quotes: Lonely Planet Ethiopia and Eritrea – 3rd Edition – Published November 2006]
