Els,
I notice that in Dec 2012 Ethiopia submitted a revised Tentative List which includes "Melka Kunture and Balchit". This has been recorded on this Web site with a new T List entry. In fact Melka Kunture (MK) is reappearing again among Ethiopia's intended nominations after a long period of absence and also appears under "dead sites" !! Might it not be more accurate to bring the original nomination details back in with its earlier history and the latest event being "2012 Added to Ethiopia's T List with the addition of Balchit"? The only difference between the orginal nomination and the new T List entry is the addition of the nearby site of Balchit from which Obsidina was obtained by the inhabitants of MK

In the Country section you have its historical entry with the following text "Melka Kontoure has been nominated in the past to qualify for inclusion in the World Heritage List, but doesn't feature anymore on the country's current Tentative List."
In fact that "history" is not quite correct anyway in that it states "1978 Tentative list. Submitted as tentative site by State Party". There was no "Tentative List" as long ago as 1978. The original Melka Kunture nomination had the very early id No 13 and was first dealt with as follows at the Sept 1978 2nd WHC in Washington -
"The Committee further decided to defer consideration of all other nominations listed in
document CC-78/CONF.010/7 until its third session. All these nominations, as well as those received after the Bureau meeting and listed in document CC-78/CONF.010/7 for which it had been impossible to complete the technical review, translation and transmission to all States members of the Committee in time before the second session would be transmitted to the Bureau for examination prior to their consideration by the Committee at its next session."
At the 1979 Bureau meeting in Paris in May it was recorded that Melka Kunture (and several other nominations) should be deferred for further documentation to be provided - as a result it was not considered at the 1979 WHC in Luxor (only sites passed forward by the Bureau were considered)
After another year of delay in 1980, the 1981 Bureau recorded for Melka Kunture and 3 other Ethiopian sites - "On the recommendation of ICOMOS these 4 nominations were deferred until the list of nominations which Ethiopia intends to nominate has been received"
As far as I know, nothing more was heard of MK until its addition to Etrhiopia's T List in 2012.
In fact I visited the site in 2008 and it had received a lot of development by Italian archaeologists who had prepared a nice little museum as well - so i suspect that Ethiopia had merely been awaiting the completion of such activities. I will try to get round to doing a review

Is it OK like this?
http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/t5788.html

Or should the deferral of 1980 be removed?

Re 1980 - I have checked and it was again deferred in that year. The mention of the need for the T List didn't appear until 1981 so is correctly recorded.

So the info for this site is now "complete" and accurate. If/when it gets put forward again/inscribed it will be interesting to be able to link it to its earlier nomination history. It fits in with 2 subjects discussed earlier on the Forum but because it appeared to be "dead", Melka Kunture was never raised under either of these 2 topics
Pending sites - http://www.worldheritagesite.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=4&topic=1761&p age=0
Old Nominations re-emerging - http://www.worldheritagesite.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=8&topic=1658

Els - A very minor point. The additional location added to Melka Kunture is "BALCHIT" not, as shown in the title on the UNESCO Web site and copied on several occasions on this Web site, "BACHILT". In fact the UNESCO site gets it right in the text - "There is also evidence of the development of a very special landscape at Balchit, up to very recent times."

See this for an independent confirmation - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.402.1737

An interesting site about Melka Kunture: http://www.melkakunture.it/melka/index.html

Ethiopia receives support in preparation of World Heritage nomination files:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/2164

"progress of the nomination projects underway for Bale Mountains National Park and Gedeo Cultural Landscape"

I was just rewriting the site intro for the enigmatic Lower Valley of the Omo, and I think I discovered a "better" map of the inscribed area. It roughly corresponds with the simple map found earlier, but has more detail (it dates from 2022). Maybe some of you who have studied this area before (I haven't) can determine if it now is clear enough to be able to determine whether one has visited the core zone or not.

My reading is that there is STILL no official inscribed area of this site and that differences across the 2 maps you have identified show that there are still matters of principle to be resolved.

The report of the 2015 Reactive Monitoring Mission stated that "The mission confirmed that the boundaries of the property as well as its wider context and setting are still undefined."
and concluded that "A property boundary (exclusion zone) should be established with the purpose of preserving the property as an unbroken landscape unit with its archaeological attributes within a visually coherent landscape."
The significant aspect of this conclusion was that any boundaries should NOT be related solely to Fossil bearing outcrops. This was important because it meant that the Kuraz sugar project couldn't continue with the assumption that agricultural areas without fossil bearing rocks were not required by the OUV.

The 2 maps linked to are surely still "WIP" as far as boundary determination is concerned (continuing the recommendations of the monitoring report as confirmed by the WHC)
a. The Earlier "simple" map at least has the merit of having only a single area within the polygon described as "World Heritage site. Suggested site boundary"
b. The later "better" map would seem to have moved back from the "unbroken landscape unit" in that it consists of a number of areas (at least 4??) relating to the main fossil bearing formations - The Kibish, Usno and Shingura areas are no longer within a single enclosed area and a completely new formation outside the "simple" map boundaries has been included - Fejej. This gets a specific mention in the UNESCO description under "Brief Synthesis" so surely needs to be included

I note also that .
a. the "simple" map includes the areas of the Omo valley around the town of Omorate - i..e those most visited by tourists. The "better" map does not.
b. the UNESCO description has been improved/altered/extended since my review and criticisms of it done around 2008 but still incorrectly "majors" on Homo Gracilis which is NOT in fact the most important aspect of the discoveries!

Sacred Landscapes of Tigray
Has someone been able to find a more extensive list of churches in Tigray that are (or could be) included in this TWHS? I am currently in the process of reorganizing some old photos from a trip to Ethiopia in 2003. I discovered the Great Temple of Yeha among them already (another TWHS, thanks Wojciech for the reminder!), but maybe there are also some Sacred Churches of Tigray among them.

The official Tentative Site description says:
"Tigray is home to 121 rock-hewn churches, believed to represent the single largest group of rock-hewn architecture in the world. Eighty of these churches, dating from the 5th to 14th centuries AD, as well as a small number of masonry-and-timber built churches, which include some of the oldest timber structures surviving worldwide (6th – 10th centuries AD), are located in the Sacred Landscapes of Tigray."
It continues: "The Gheralta Sacred Landscape, which consists of the Gheralta ridge and the twenty-eight rock-hewn monuments carved into the sandstone, represents the first phase of the serial nomination. ... The Tembien Sacred Landscape incorporates twenty-eight rock-hewn churches. ... The Atsbi Sacred Landscape .. includes twenty-four rock-hewn churches, as well as three very early timber-and-masonry built churches."

· So we should look for 80 rock-hewn churches from the 5-14th centuries, plus 3 timber ones (6th-10th centuries)

Named churches in the text are only 8:
· Gheralta: none named
· Tembien: church of Abba Yohanni
· Atsbi: basilica of Mikael Amba, Mikael Barka, Mikael Mitsua, Abuna AregawiAfa'anti, Debra Selam Mikael (partly timber), TcherqosAgabo (timber), Zarema Giyorgis (timber)

Lonely Planet manages to single out 20:
· Abuna Yemata Guh
· Debre Tsion Abraham church
· Abuna Abraham
· Abraha We Atsbeha
· Maryam Korkor
· Mikael Debre Selam
· Maryam Papaseit
· Medhane Alem Kesho
· Abuna Gebre Mikael
· Daniel Korkor
· Abba Yohanni rock hewn church on the cliffs of Debre Ansa.
· Gebriel Wukien
· Petros We Paulos
· Wukro Cherkos
· Mikael Barka
· Yohannes Maequdi
· Mikael Imba
· Mikael Milhaizengi
· Dugem Selassie
· Meqaber Ga'ewa
· Mikael Meka'e

I do have Wukro Chirkos (the easiest as it lies next to the main road, but it seems to fit the criteria), Abraha We Atsbeha and some other non-descript ones like this one. Debre Damo may be too far north?