Ethnological Museum

The Ethnological Museum occupies part of Emperor Haile Selassie's former palace on the main campus of Addis Ababa University, and that setting is half the attraction. It is described as the first university museum in Ethiopia, and it shares the building with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. The early collections came largely from old Italian zoological specimens and from ethnographic objects gathered by the first graduates of the university college, an idea credited to the former chief librarian Stanislaw Chojnacki.

The main exhibition is arranged around the stages of a human life, from childhood through adulthood to death, and uses objects from many of Ethiopia's peoples to show how customs differ across the country. It is one of the clearest introductions in the city to the diversity behind the word Ethiopian. Further rooms cover religious art and traditional musical instruments, and the collections also include anthropology, philatelic and numismatic material, with around 13,000 items between them.

Then there are the palace rooms themselves. Visitors can see interiors of Haile Selassie's residence, including the emperor's bed, ceremonial robes and other personal artefacts, and the Lion of Judah, the symbol of the Ethiopian monarchy. Seeing these private spaces gives a human scale to a ruler who otherwise appears mostly in official portraits, and they make a striking contrast with the ethnographic halls next door.

Allow one and a half to two hours to see the museum properly. It suits travellers with an interest in culture, music and twentieth-century history, and older children often enjoy the instruments and everyday objects. Because the Institute of Ethiopian Studies shares the building, the museum also has a library used by researchers, and the whole complex has a quieter, more academic feel than the city's newer museums. There is parking on site. Because the museum sits inside a working university, opening days can shift around university holidays, so confirm times before you set out.

The National Museum of Ethiopia, near the university's graduate school, is a short ride away, and many visitors see both on the same day, starting with Lucy and the archaeology at the National Museum and finishing with the people and customs of modern Ethiopia here.