Burial site, Monastery of Yemrehanna Kristos, Bilbilla
Priest with icon, Monastery of Yemrehanna Kristos, Bilbilla
Monastery of Yemrehanna Kristos, Bilbilla
Bet Medhane Alem Church, Lalibela
Bet Medhane Alem Church, Lalibela
Bet Medhane Alem Church, Lalibela
Bet Medhane Alem Church, Lalibela
Bajaj, Gondar airport
A forty-minute flight east from Gondar had us landing at Lalibela airport at just after 9.00am. A thirty-minute bus ride then followed and we arrived at our relatively luxurious (based upon previous experiences!) hotel in Lalibela.
Lalibela is an isolated town set high in the Lasta mountains at 2630m set amongst craggy peaks and vast chisel sharp escarpments. Lalibela has the reputation of being the number one tourist location in Ethiopia because it is where there are eleven amazing 12th/13th century churches, hewn directly from the mountains.
The town of Lalibela derives its name from the most famous of the Zawge Dynasty rulers of the 12th century, King (now Saint) Lalibela. King Lalibela whilst in exile in Jerusalem had a vision in which an angel transported him to heaven and showed him a city of rock hewn churches and as soon as he was crowned King of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) he gathered together 40,000 labourers and craftsmen and over the period of 23 years, had these magnificent structures built. There are all sorts of strange stories such as ‘angels helped build the churches and that ‘one church was hewn from a mountainside in a day!’
Lalibela’s churches are divided into two clusters, the northwest and the southeast, separated by the Jordan River, named by King Lalibela after he’d returned from a visit to Jerusalem.
The first church we visited was Bet Medhane Alem which is in the northwest cluster. This is the largest rock hewn monolithic church in the world! It is 11.5m high and is rectangular being approximately 20m x 40m. Its roof top was the original ground level of the mountainside and the construction required the masons and labourers to dig downwards into solid rock for 11.5m over a large area leaving a ring of trenches and courtyards on the outside of the church. Both inside and outside there are 36 massive pillars and the internal part of the church has the classical three chambered sections, one for chanting, one for praying and one for the replica of the Ark of the Covenant. Surrounding the church is a trench and the walls are pockmarked with recessed regions and holes that originally served as graves or hermits’ caves.
We then entered a short tunnel that led us to a second courtyard enclosing three more churches the largest of which was Bet Maryam. This was probably the first church built in Lalibela and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This church is more elaborately decorated with intricate carvings and murals than Bet Medhane Alem and has a more intimate interior layout. One of the internal pillars is enshrouded with a white veil and is not to be viewed by the public. It is thought to be inscribed with the Ten Commandments in both Greek and Ge’ez as well as information on how the Lalibela churches were excavated. Our guide informed us that it also tells of both the beginning and the end of the world. It is claimed that it would be too dangerous for its information to be viewed by researchers!
We also took time to view the interior of the tiny chapel of Bet Meskel and then the external surrounds of Bet Danaghel.
After lunch we drove about 40 km on a very rough and dusty road to Bilbilla to view the Monastery of Yemrehanna Kristos. We walked up a stone path for 300m to a point where we were confronted by an unimpressive concrete block wall. Stepping through the gateway we were immediately taken with a built-up church inside a very large cave. The church was built by the predecessor of King Lalibela, namely Yemrehanna Kristos in the 11th century from granite imported from Egypt and gypsum and timbers from Jerusalem. The structure is a fine example of late-Axumite architecture using alternating layers of granite and timber faced with gypsum giving the appearance of a layered chocolate cream cake. It has domed ceilings and many fine stone carvings such as the cruciform window frames and the internal timberwork has fine panelling with inlaid hexagons and other fancy geometrical shapes. As with the other Lalibela churches we’d visited earlier, there are six small rooms ‘upstairs’ for the storage of church treasures. The ceiling in this church originally had diamonds incorporated into elaborate candelabras.
Behind the main building at the back of the cave are the skeletons of some 10,740 Christian pilgrims who travelled from near and far (e.g. Egypt, Syria and Palestine) to die at this monastery. This is a macabre sight and in this ancient setting gave us a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” feeling!
This has been a fascinating introduction to the extraordinary architecture of ancient churches in Lalibela. Tomorrow we mountain climb to over 4,000m to see more of these ‘wonders of the world’.