After the April 2019 Notre-Dame Cathedral fire in Paris, Ethiopia confirmed that a cross gifted by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1954 was among treasures that survived the blaze, Africanews reported.
The gift linked Ethiopian imperial diplomacy to one of Europe’s most watched churches. Its survival became a small bright note inside a week of global shock over the burning roof.
Heritage stories travel because objects carry state memory. A cross from Haile Selassie is not only metalwork. It is a reminder of how Ethiopia narrated itself abroad in the mid-twentieth century.
For a Horn culture archive, the Notre-Dame cross file is worth keeping: fire, empire, faith, and modern Ethiopia’s claim on a piece of Parisian sacred history that did not burn.
Sources: Africanews
