Fasil Ghebbi

Fasil Ghebbi is a fortress-enclosure in Gondar, in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, begun in 1636 under Emperor Fasilides after he made Gondar his capital, and expanded by his successors over the following century and a half. Enclosed within nearly a kilometer of stone walls, the compound holds a cluster of castles and palaces, banqueting halls, stables and a chancellery that together blend Aksumite, Nubian, Arab, and Portuguese-Jesuit architectural influences brought to Ethiopia by earlier foreign missions, a distinctive fusion that later scholars nicknamed the Gondar style. Fasilides' own castle, the compound's oldest structure, combines crenellated towers with rounded turrets in a form unlike traditional Ethiopian building. UNESCO inscribed Fasil Ghebbi as a World Heritage Site in 1979.