Hidden for centuries
in the midst of the Lasta mountains, in the eastern highlands
of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, is a traditional village of
circular-shaped dwellings and 11 rock-hewn monolithic churches
that date from the 7th to the 13th century. This small rural
town, 800 kilometers north of Addis Ababa, is one of
Ethiopia's holiest places and a Christian center of
pilgrimage. Once called Roha,
it was a political centre of the Zagwe dynasty for about 300 years,
but was renamed Lalībela in the late12th and early-13th
century after King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (r. ca. 1181–1221).
Ethiopians felt
deprived from making their traditional pilgrimage across the
Red Sea to the Holy Land after Christian pilgrimages to
Jerusalem ceased with the conquest of the Holy Lands by
Muslims in the 12th century. Therefore, King Lalibela, who is
said to have travelled to Jerusalem and had claims of
Solomonic royal descent, wished to recreate a symbolic
substitute of ‘New Jerusalem’, and gave the place its present
complexity and form, and renamed places and natural features
that had been visited by pilgrims in Jerusalem – like
Yordanos (Jordan), for the river which flows though the site,
and a nearby hill as Debra Zeit (Mount of Olives).
The first Europeans
to see this group of eleven monolithic churches chiselled from
pink volcanic rock, now known as the ‘eighth wonder of the
world’, were two Portuguese in the 1400s. It took more than
300 years (around the mid 1800s), for the next European to
visit Lalibela.
Located at 2,630
meters above sea level, at the base of Mount Abuna Yosef, the
eleven churches were chiseled out entirely below ground level,
each from a single piece of solid rock. Not only the
craftsmanship, but also the sheer size of the churches is
stunning. To build this unique engineering and artistic feat,
workers first traced the perimeter of the structure by carving
a massive rectangular trench around a solid granite block and
then started carving it out from the top down, rather than
from the ground up, using chisels, axes, and other blades. The
exterior was sculpted first and then the inner mass, forming
doors, windows, columns, various floors, roofs etc., and
ornamented with intricately carved reliefs, while many of the
interiors are decorated with fabulous icon paintings.
Bracketed pillars support flat ceilings, barrel vaults, and
domes. To avoid flooding from underground rivers and water
tables, an extensive system of drainage ditches were created.
Passing through this trench and tunnel system is an
underground maze of tunnels and passages linking the churches.
Steps and steep pedestals lead visitors upward into the
churches, lifting them from the carved trenches and pathways
in their spiritual journey between churches.
alibela
is a high place of Ethiopian Christianity, and a place of
pilgrimage and devotion.You must take your shoes off before
entering the churches and walk barefoot between the churches
as many pilgrims do... The rock between churches in each
cluster, although uneven, has been worn smooth over the
centuries, Rugs cover these roughly hewn floors which and rise
or fall in height to delineate different sacred zones.
Since the time spent
to carve some the oldest of these structures from the living
rock must have taken longer than the few decades of King
Lalibela's reign, it is believed that they were initially
carved out of the rock about 500 years earlier than the
traditional dating, These first monuments were not built as
churches but as fortifications or other palace structures in
the days of the Kingdom of Aksum, and perhaps later extended–
the finest and most sophisticated churches were added in a
different architectural style and converted to ecclesiastical
use around the 12th or 11th century with Lalibela's name with
them after his death.
There are two main
groups of churches – and a single church divided by the river
Yordannos (Jordan)
TO THE NORTH OF THE
RIVER JORDAN: Biete Medhani Alem (House of the Saviour of the
World), Biete Mariam (House of Mary), Biete Maskal (House of
the Cross), Biete Denagel (House of Virgins), Biete Golgotha
Mikael (House of Golgotha Mikael)
AND TO THE SOUTH OF
THE RIVER, Biete Amanuel (House of Emmanuel), Biete Qeddus
Mercoreus (House of St. Mercoreos), Biete Abba Libanos (House
of Abbot Libanos), Biete Gabriel Raphael (House of Gabriel
Raphael), and Biete Lehem (House of Holy Bread). The eleventh
church,dwellings
Biete Ghiorgis (House
of St. George), is isolated from the others, but connected by
a system of dwelling
Nora
Kanatsouli
Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia
Nora Kanatsouli
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