Institute of Ethiopian Studies
The Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) was founded in 1963 to collect and study information about Ethiopian civilization, including its history, cultures, and languages. It has three main parts: a research and publication unit, a library, and a museum. It is based at Addis Ababa University, Sidist (6) Kilo campus, which was formerly Haile Selassie I University.
The IES has had several directors. The first director was Richard Pankhurst, and the first librarian was Stanislaw Chojnacki. Other directors have included Fäqadu Gadamu, Taddesse Tamrat, Taddese Beyene, Bahru Zewde, Abdussamad Ahmad, Baye Yemam, and Elizabet Walde Giyorgis. Today the Institute is housed in the former Gännäta Le’ul or Princely Paradise Palace, built in 1934 for Emperor Haile Selassie.
In 1936 Italian forces occupied Addis Ababa, using the palace as their base. The building drew international attention after Ethiopian resistance and a crackdown led to massacres in Yekatit 12. After liberation, Selassie was restored, and the palace served as the Empire’s unofficial headquarters from 1950. It was the site of the 1960 coup attempt, which helped spark the Ethiopian student movement. The palace’s ground floor became the library, while the second floor, once the Emperor’s bedrooms and study, is now part of the Ethnological Museum.
The IES unit conducts and publishes research. It produces conference proceedings, museum catalogs, reference works, and the Journal of Ethiopian Studies (JES), founded in 1963. JES publishes in English and Amharic, with editorial support from the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies at Hamburg University. The unit also published the national bibliography of Ethiopian materials until 1975, when that responsibility passed to the National Archives and Library of Ethiopia. The IES hosts the international Ethiopian Studies conference every nine years and runs a monthly local seminar for researchers, staff, and students. It is the first university museum in Ethiopia.
The museum’s permanent collection covers five areas: anthropology, art, ethnomusicology, numismatics (coins), and philately (stamps). It also hosts temporary exhibitions and contains objects dating back to the early Aksumite period. When the museum opened, it included a zoology collection, which is now in the Natural History Museum of Ethiopia at Arat 4 Kilo. The palace site also displays Haile Selassie’s chambers and his embroidered robes and military uniform.
In 1968, the Society of Friends of the IES was established to raise funds for the museum. The IES Library collects material in Ethiopian studies across the humanities and social sciences and preserves Ethiopian manuscripts. Its Woldämäskäl Memorial Research Center holds many of the Institute’s rare publications and manuscripts in Ge’ez, Amharic, Oromiffa, Tigrinya, and other Ethiopian languages. The library runs a manuscript restoration laboratory and is not a lending library. It also stores all university theses and dissertations related to Ethiopian Studies.
The IES has six departments: Foreign Languages; Ethiopian Languages and Periodicals; Manuscripts and Archives; the Woldämäskäl Memorial Research Center; Audiovisual Materials; and Automation and Digitization.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:49 (CET).