National Museum of Ethiopia

Before you go inside, notice the garden. Eucalyptus leaves rustle overhead, and the air of the highlands feels thin and cool. Addis Ababa sits well over two thousand metres above sea level, so the light here is sharp and clear. Along the paths, stone sculptures stand among the trees and flowerbeds. Traffic hums somewhere beyond the gate, but inside these grounds the city feels further away. This is the National Museum of Ethiopia. It holds some of the oldest chapters of the human story.

Most visitors come for one reason. They come to meet Lucy. Ethiopians also call her Dinkinesh, an Amharic name that means, roughly, "you are marvellous." She is a fossil skeleton of an early human relative, and she is about 3.2 million years old. When people describe her, they often use the word grandmother. That is not exactly right, but it captures the feeling. Standing in front of her, you look at a creature who walked upright long before our own species existed.

Lucy was found in 1974 in the Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia. The site is called Hadar. It is a dry, eroded landscape where ancient sediments come up to the surface. A team led by the American palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson spotted the first bone fragments on a slope. Over the following days, they collected a large part of a single skeleton. For a find so old, that was rare. Most fossils of this age are a jaw, a tooth, or a piece of skull.

Here is a detail many visitors enjoy. The name Lucy came from a song. On the night of the discovery, the team celebrated at their camp, and a Beatles record played again and again. The song was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Someone suggested the name, and it stayed. So the most famous fossil in Africa carries a name from 1960s English pop music. Her Amharic name came from Ethiopia. Both names are used with real affection today.

Now, a surprise. The skeleton in the display case is usually a cast, not the original bones. The real fossils are very fragile and very precious. For that reason, the museum keeps them in secure, climate-controlled storage, away from light and changing humidity. The replica is accurate in shape and colour. So you see exactly what the bones look like. When you lean close to the glass, notice how small she is. She stood only a little over one metre tall.

Look carefully at the pelvis and the leg bones. These are the parts that changed science. Their shape shows that Lucy walked on two legs. At the same time, her brain was small, close to the size of a chimpanzee's brain. This combination matters. It showed researchers that upright walking came first. Large brains developed much later. Her species is called Australopithecus afarensis, which simply means the southern ape of Afar. The name points back to the region where she was found.

Lucy is not alone in these galleries. Nearby you may find casts and displays of other Ethiopian discoveries. One is Selam, a young child of Lucy's species, found at a site called Dikika. Her name means peace in Amharic. Another is Ardi, a much older human relative from the Middle Awash valley. Ardi is around 4.4 million years old. Together, these finds explain a well-known claim. Ethiopia is one of the most important places on Earth for studying human origins.

Why Ethiopia? The answer lies in the ground itself. The Great Rift Valley runs through this country. It is a long crack in the African continent, where the land is slowly pulling apart. Over millions of years, volcanoes left layers of ash, and lakes and rivers left layers of sediment. Erosion now exposes these layers. The volcanic ash also helps scientists date the fossils. In other words, the landscape preserves ancient remains, and it also brings them back to the surface.

But this museum is not only about deep time. Upstairs and in the other halls, the story moves forward. You can follow the long history of the Ethiopian highlands. There are objects from the ancient Aksumite kingdom. Aksum was a powerful trading state in the north, known for its tall carved stone monuments and its early adoption of Christianity. Look for pottery, coins and carved stone. Each object is a small piece of a civilisation that traded across the Red Sea.

Another part of the museum shows royal and religious life. You can see ceremonial objects, crowns, robes and painted religious art. Ethiopian church painting has its own style. Look for large almond-shaped eyes, strong outlines and bright reds, yellows and greens. Saints and angels often look directly at you. In many traditional paintings, good figures are shown from the front, and evil figures appear in profile. Once you notice this rule, you will start to see it in many works.

One object often stops people in the middle of a room. It is a large, richly decorated imperial throne. It is a reminder that Ethiopia had a monarchy for centuries, and that it lasted into the 1970s. That was the same decade Lucy came out of the ground in Afar. It is an unusual pairing. In the same building, you can see the end of an empire and the remains of a creature from more than three million years ago.

The ethnographic displays bring the story closer to the present. Ethiopia is home to many peoples and dozens of languages. The museum shows this variety through everyday objects. Look for woven baskets, musical instruments, clothing, jewellery and household tools. These items are not grand, but they are personal. Someone shaped them by hand, used them, and lived with them. Compared with the fossils downstairs, they belong to a very recent past, but they continue the same human story.

A practical word as you explore. The museum is not huge, and its displays can feel modest compared with some large museums in other countries. Some labels are short, and the lighting varies from room to room. Do not let that disappoint you. The value here is in what the objects are, more than in how they are presented. Take your time. Read what you can, and ask a staff member if something interests you. Many visitors find the quiet rooms easier to enjoy without a crowd.

Before you leave, go back to the garden for a moment. Listen to the birds in the trees and the distant sound of the city. Feel the cool highland air again. A short walk away, a small skeleton rests in her glass case, while the real bones stay safely below. Millions of years separate her from you. Yet she stood upright on African ground, as you are standing now. As you walk out through the gate, take that thought with you.