Ethiopia: Debre Berhan Selassie Church, Gondar

ICCROM undertook several missions to Debre Berhan Selassie, starting in 1973 and culminating in three campaigns to preserve and restore the wall paintings between 1979 to 1982, with support from the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture, Youth Affairs and Sport, UNESCO and UNDP (United Nations Development Program). This four-year programme of international collaboration aimed to form a local team of wall painting conservators and treat the previously unrestored portions of the church.

Ethiopian conservators were assisted on the project by international experts. The ICCROM Archive contains mission reports, related correspondence, photographs (both black and white and colour) and material samples, all of which document the work carried out on the mural paintings at the time. This includes preliminary inspections, state of conservation, laboratory analysis of the paintings’ component materials, and conservation interventions before, during and after treatment.

Learn more here.