Exhibition2024
Land of Origins
A travelling exhibition on the Afar and Omo valleys — how sediment, ash and dating methods turned a landscape into the archive of human beginnings.
Stories, research and evidence
Discoveries
Go deeper into Ethiopia's story. The Coffee Table Book and its digital chapters travel from humanity's origins through living heritage, landscapes and Africa's diplomatic heart to the people and ambitions shaping the nation's future. Explore each chapter to discover how Ethiopia's many stories belong to one journey: Land of Origins.
Featured volume · 2024
The Coffee Table Book
Land of Origins is Ethiopia's national Coffee Table Book: an emotional and evidence-led journey through a country where origins remain visible in landscapes, traditions, communities and everyday life.
Across five chapters, the book moves from origins to heritage, people, place, transformation and future. It opens with Land of Origins, then explores identity and continuity in The Sovereign Echo of Heritage; landscapes and environmental ambition in From Ancient Terraces to Green Futures; Ethiopia's place at the center of the continent in Where Africa Finds Its Anchor; and the cities, energy, innovation and achievement of Beyond the Origin to the Future.
More than a catalogue of attractions, it shows how Ethiopia's many stories belong together, and leaves the reader with one understanding: Ethiopia's origins are extraordinary, but its story is still being written.
- Chapter 1 — Land of Origins
- Chapter 2 — The Sovereign Echo of Heritage
- Chapter 3 — From Ancient Terraces to Green Futures
- Chapter 4 — Where Africa Finds Its Anchor
- Chapter 5 — Beyond the Origin to the Future
The extension series
Research2023
The Southern Window of Heritage
Fieldwork across the Konso terraces, the Omo basin and the Rift Valley lakes, documenting living cultural landscapes rather than monuments alone.
Report2023
African Ancient Evidence, Together
A continental collaboration on Aksumite, Nubian and Swahili material culture — evidence of African states trading with each other long before they traded with Europe.
Publication2025
Ethiopia's Future
A data volume on demography, energy and urbanisation — the numbers behind the next two decades, with sources published alongside every chart.
Film2025
Innovative Ethiopia Starts Again
A documentary series on Ethiopian engineers, founders and designers building at altitude — told without narration.
Book2025
Beyond the Origin, Toward the Future
The closing volume: what a country does with the longest human record on earth, and what it owes the people who live on top of it.