The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela- the 8th wonder of the world, the African Petra and Lalibela being the new Jerusalem.
Lalibela (Amharic: ላሊበላ) is a town in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. The town of Lalibela was named after the late-12th and early-13th century King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty, who carved the massive building project of 11 rock-hewn churches to recreate the holy city of Jerusalem in his own kingdom. In a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia, some 700 km from Addis Ababa, the 11 magnificent medieval monolithic churches were carved out of bedrock. The building is attributed to King Lalibela, who set out to construct in the 12th century a 'New Jerusalem' for his people. Located in the Lasta district and North Wollo Zone, it is a tourist site famous for its rock-cut monolithic churches.
Lalibela is a large and important site for the antiquity, medieval, and post-medieval civilization of Ethiopia. To Christians, it is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities and a center of pilgrimage.
The 11 enormous Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela are very-well hewn churches excavated from the bedrock, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere in the world. They are also an attribute of angels. Indeed the work appears superhuman! It is said that God helped Lalibela build the churches with the help of angels working at night.
The Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1978, and UNESCO describes them as "the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela are an exceptionally fine example of a long-established Ethiopian buildings traditions." The 11 Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela are monolithic and semi-monolithic churches located in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands in the town of Lalibela. The site remains in use by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church to this day, and it remains an important place of pilgrimage for Ethiopian Orthodox worshipers. It took 23 years to hewn all 11 Rock-Hewn Churches.
The Rock-Hewn Churches at Lalibela are made through subtractive processes in which space is created by removing material. Out of the 11 churches, four are free-standing (monolithic), and 7 share a wall with the mountain, out of which they are carved. The churches are each unique, giving the site an architectural diversity that is evident by the human figures of bas-reliefs inside Bet Golgotha and the colourful paintings of geometrical designs and biblical scenes in Bet Mariam. All 11 churches were the result of a process using the basic tools of hammers and chisels to excavate trenches surrounding the monolithic and semi-monolithic structures, as well as a system of tunnels which connected two separate groups of the churches out of the scoriaceous basalt. The "construction" was done from top to bottom.
The churches of Lalibela hold important religious significance for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Together they form a pilgrimage site with particular spiritual and symbolic value, with a layout representing the holy city of Jerusalem. The site continues to be used for daily worship and prayer, the celebration of religious festivals like Timkat/ Ethiopian Epiphany and Genna/Ethiopian Christmas as a home to clergy, and as a place which increasingly brings together religious adherents and leaders and thousands of tourists from all over the world every year.