- Eritreans expected to join foreign visitors
Gondar city is awaiting for more than two million visitors for the celebration of this year’s Timket, (Ethiopian Epiphany), which officially falls from January 18-20 this year.
The celebration would be the first since Timket festival has been registered by the UNESCO as an intangible world heritage.
According to the Mayor of Gondar City Administration, along with other factors, the festival’s inscription to world heritage is likely to increase the number of foreign visitors this year.
The recent rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea is expected to upsurge the number of foreign visitors as Eritreans are fond of celebrating the Ethiopian Epiphany in Gondar, which was interrupted for more than a couple of decades because of war.
He told local media that pre-event celebrations have already started since last Sunday.
Timket is an Amharic word literally meaning “Baptism” and refers to the Orthodox Tewahedo Celebration of Epiphany. The major festival falls on January 19th (or 20th in a leap year), corresponding to the 11th day of Tir in the Ethiopian calendar.
While Timket is widely celebrated across Ethiopia, Gondar is one of several places where spectacular celebrations take place.
The event in Gondar takes place inside medieval period palaces, castles, and royal bath, which is filled for the Timket festival to replicate the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River.
In Aksum, the event body of water is made in the Bath of Queen Sheba and in Lalibela, in all around the 12th century Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela.
Timket is officially a three-day event, which begins from January 18th with the procession of tabots (the Ark of the Covenant) to the body of water in the afternoon.
The Ethiopian Herald January 15/2020
BY STAFF REPORTER
