Professor Alebachew Belay Birru
AfOx Fellow 2023
Alebachew Belay Birru is an Ethiopian archaeologist who specializes in the archaeology and heritage of the medieval period in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Dr Birru is currently an AfOx TORCH Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, as part of the Africa Oxford Visiting Fellowship Programme.
Dr. Alebachew is an Assistant Professor of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Debre Berhan University in Ethiopia. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Internationalisation and Partnership. In 2020, he received his Ph.D. in archaeology from the Université de Toulouse, France. From January to June 2023, he was a postdoctoral fellow at I Tatti-The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. Dr. Alebachew has conducted rigorous archaeological fieldwork as part of his Master's and Ph.D. studies, as well as other research projects, and has published a book and several articles in peer-reviewed journals. Currently, he is leading a project called "Ankober Historical Landscape Preservation and Valorisation," which is being funded by Debre Berhan University. Additionally, Dr. Alebachew is the founder and head of the "Forum for Medieval Studies in Ethiopia and the Horn" (FMSEH) initiative. This initiative organizes a monthly webinar series on various topics in the fields of Archaeology, History, History of Art and Architecture, and philology in collaboration with scholars from across the Horn and researchers from institutions around the world.
Dr. Alebachew will be working on a project titled ‘Ethiopia in the Global Middle Ages: Intra and Inter-Regional Networks’ during his time in Oxford. The project aims to explore the multi-confessional environment that prevailed in the Horn of Africa during the medieval period, as part of a wider set of global and transregional patterns. Rather than viewing it as a separate and isolated entity confined to East Africa, the project investigates how this region was connected to other parts of the world. By using archaeological evidence, the project will shed light on the networks that existed between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, and the multicultural world of the Horn of Africa during the Middle Ages.
Dr. Alebachew hopes that the project's success will have a significant impact on the field of medieval studies in the Horn of Africa. Additionally, it will strengthen the inter-institutional ties between Debre Berhan and the University of Oxford.