Looking at the cultural heritage proclamations of Ethiopia: conceptualisation and management of cultural heritage

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to explore how the conceptualisation and management of cultural heritage have been treated in the cultural heritage proclamations of Ethiopia. The analysis of the four cultural heritage proclamations reveals that the notion of cultural heritage improves from the first to the fourth proclamation. In the first two proclamations, the term antiquity was employed, and the latter two employed the term of cultural heritage. The 1966 proclamation included antiquities that were dated prior to 1850 EC, while the 1989 proclamation removed this cutoff date and expounded upon the definition of antiquities. The 2000 proclamation replaced the term antiquity with cultural heritage and introduced the concept of intangible cultural heritage. In terms of the management of cultural heritage, the differences between the 1989 and 2000 proclamations are quite minimal. The 2014 proclamation attempted to classify cultural heritage into national and regional cultural heritage. It also defined important components of intangible cultural heritage. The management of cultural heritage exhibits some evolution from the first to the last proclamation. However, due to the diversified nature of cultural heritage conceptualisation and management, it will be important for additional legislation to be issued separately for movable, immovable and intangible cultural heritage, for example. This study argues that strong legal and institutional frameworks should be established to properly protect, conserve and study cultural heritage.