The Incredible Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

The Incredible Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

Within the heart of Ethiopia can be found certainly one of its holiest towns, called Lalibela, where a small grouping of eleven monolithic churches that are rock-hewn. They truly are the biggest monolithic temples in the field, and detailed as a UNESCO World Heritage website, yet much secret nevertheless surrounds their construction.

The chronilogical age of these structures is unknown, but legends mention that these were excavated through the reign of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela , who ruled Ethiopia at the start of the 13 century AD that is th. Their name means ‘the bees recognize him as a king’. Nevertheless, David Phillipson, teacher of African archeology at Cambridge University, has proposed that the churches of Merkorios, Gabriel-Rufael, and Danagel had been at first carved out from the stone half a millennium earlier in the day, as fortifications or other palace structures into the waning days of the Axumite Kingdom, and therefore Lalibela’s title just had become connected with him after their death.

Original monolithic rock-hewn Church of St George, Lalibela, Ethiopia. Credit:Dmitry Chulov / BigStockPhoto

All eleven churches are arranged in 2 teams and therefore are linked to passageways 11 meters (36 feet) deeply. Fortsätt läsa ”The Incredible Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia”