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Ethiopian Coat of Arms

Emblem

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Ethiopia

Emblem

Visser's "Flaggen Wappen Hymnen" [vis98] on page 51 states:
>>> Staatswappen: Eingefürt 1996. Eine hellblaue runde Scheibe mit einem gelben Pentagram und fünf gelben Trapezen. <<<
(Coat of arms: introduced 1996. A light blue round disk with a yellow pentagram and five yellow trapezes.) It shows the same emblem that we are used to see in the middle of the 1996 flag.

Now, the new constitution that is shown in several places on Internet (though some name it "draft" while others don't qualify it, maybe they "forgot", maybe it was adopted after all), like on ET embassy page, Article 3 mention it "only" as the national emblem. However, since it does not follow the heraldic tradition very much, maybe the author of the English text did not want to call it coat of arms (or simply found the word embelm more suitable for some other reason), but there is no other thing that may be considered even close to coat of arms - so may we assume that it is a coat of arms (or equivalent to one in function, in strict heraldic sense) after all.
Željko Heimer, 6 March 2001

I agree. I think this is purely terminological problem, possibly it would be more appropriate to talk about *national emblems*, some of them having traditionally the *form* of coat-of arms.
All my sources (Czech journal Vexilologie, relevant web pages) agree that the blue disk with the pentagram *is* the coat of arms of the DFR Ethiopia.
Jan Zrzavy, 7 March 2001