The Forgotten Heritages of Mertule Maryam Monastery and Its Trail for Sustainable Tourism Development

Ethiopian monasteries and churches are home to substantial material culture, storing frontiers of knowledge from the sacred to the secular. M?rtul? Maryam, located in the former Gojjam province of Mo??a awraja particularly in En?bs? Sar Meder w?r?da, is the repository of a number of cultural heritages, with significant historical values. This paper investigates the forgotten incredible and priceless heritage and the ?traditional? cultural heritage management practices of the church. The paper focuses on practices of local and scientific cultural heritage conservation. Indeed, the paper also assess the potential of M?rtul? Maryam Monastery to become tourist destination and to investigate many factors accounted or hindered the site to contribute for tourism development. To realize this objective, the researcher employed qualitative research method. To assess the forgotten monastery heritages, their indigenous knowledge in preserving the heritage, its potential for tourism and challenges of the monastery for tourism development, primary and secondary data were collected. To collect primary data, face to face personal interview and participant observation was conducted. In order to analyse the contents of documentary materials such as books, archives, newspapers and the contents of interviews and personal observation, the researcher has employed interpretive and descriptive analysis.