UNESCO Should Inscribe Timket as Intangible Heritage, Says Tourists

Addis Ababa January 20/2019 Appreciating the peculiarity of Timket (Ethiopian Epiphany), tourists from across the world said it should be inscribed as one of world cultural heritage.

Christian’s and others, Ethiopians and foreigners attend Timket festivity which is colorfully celebrated on the 19th of January or 20th of January once in every four years.

The tourists, who happen to take part in this year’s Timket, expressed that it has everything to qualify and be inscribed as UNESCO’s intangible heritage.

A British tourist, Iona Torbet, said Timket should be inscribed as a world heritage “since most cultures in the world today are getting lost.”

Stating that Ethiopia is a unique country that it has such a rich culture, she expressed her support for the campaign to inscribe Timiket festivity as an intangible cultural world heritage.

“I am supper thrilled to celebrate this beautiful festival,” she said, adding that she will tell her friends about the ceremony to come and see what it looks like.

A Dutchman, Lieke Milan, told ENA “We don’t have such festivity in the Netherlands and Timket is spectacular religious ritual that should be inscribed as world heritage.

She said that the government and other relevant stakeholders should speed up the process of registering Timket as intangible world cultural heritage.

Bosses Maier, a Swedish visitor, described Timket as “most fascinating” and added “I will be excited if it is inscribed by UNISCO as a world heritage, then everybody would preserve and belongs to the festival.”

Timket(Epiphany) is one of the grand outdoor religious festivals in Ethiopia celebrated with a lot of scenery including cultural wears, traditional songs and dances.

UNISCO Convention with the aim to safeguard cultural heritages defines intangible cultural heritage as “the practices, representations, expressions as well as the knowledge and skills that communities, group and in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage”.

The efforts of inscribing Timket as UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List started three years ago in cooperation with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) and Ministry of Tourism and Culture.

Ethiopia’s move to inscribe Timket as UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage is expected to get its final decision from 9 to 14 December, 2019 where the 14th annual meeting of UNESCO will take place in Bogotá, Colombia.

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