Randi Thomsen

2.00 Norway - 08-Aug-24 -

It’s likely we are the first visitors from our community to visit this site after inscription at the 2024 session.

On our southern Etiopia  tour this was our first stop. The site is anonymous, with no signs leading to it from the main road. At the site itself, there were no indications of its recent status as a World Heritage site.

We visited the Gombore site, which has five excavation sites, with #2 displayed as an open-air museum. From the entrance, it is a few hundred meters walk along an overgrown path.

This excavation site is approximately 800,000 years old. We saw several tools, fireplaces, and the bones of hippos and gazelles. A Homo erectus skull was also found here, which is now displayed in the National Museum in Addis Ababa.  According to the site mananger there are also some old  footprints, that testify a long existence of life in this area. 

The site manager told us they have identified 65 possible sites in the area, with half of them currently been excavated. The findings range from 2 million years old to 150,000 years old Homo sapiens. There is certainly much more to discover in this area. 

The site we visited appears to be a primary site. There is a small museum in a traditional house, displaying mostly tools from the surrounding excavation sites, along with some replica skulls from other parts of Africa. There are several tools made of obsidian from the Balchit site. According to the site manager, a visit to the Balchit site is possible, but we had no time for an additional visit in our itinerary.

The site is overgrown and seems to receive very few visitors. As with other archaeological sites related to early humans, there is usually not much to see, but we enjoyed our visit.

### Randi & Svein Elias

Boj

Philippines - 14-Jan-23 -

Visited Melka Kunture archaeological site in January 2023 - a quick day trip from Addis Ababa.

The site has an interesting museum exhibiting Ethiopia's rich archaeological heritage. Melka Kunture boasts for recording 1.7 million years of continuous prehistoric human occupation, apart from its rich lithic, flora and fauna fossil records (Photo is from the dig site with in-situ artefacts).

Travelers can arrange a visit to Melka Kunture with a trip to Tiya (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Adadi Mariam Rock Church, the only known rock-hewn church outside of Lalibela.