Well, Lalibela is in Punt-land, present day Ethiopia, the place that in 1495BCE the Egyptians called 'Ta-Netjeru', meaning 'Land of the Gods' and which they considered their place of origin.
And while I've only been to a few of the places mentioned above I will say this: Lalibela is a surreal, fantastic vision, a secretive and confounding complex of rock-hewn churches and monasteries that exhale divine magic. Unlike many other heritage sites and ruins, the churches of Lalibela remain the spiritual core of the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia, a place of pilgrimage and devotion, of chanting and prayer and drumming and incense and offerings; a place of miraculous healings and interventions where the threshold between one's physical life and one's spiritual life fades and becomes joyfully porous.
A word about Ethiopia's Christianity: it's pre-colonial, Oriental, Non-Chalcedonian 'Tewahedo' Orthodox. 'Tewahedo' translates as 'Being Made One' and refers to the Oriental Orthodox belief in the single, unified nature of Christ, as opposed to the 'Two Natures of Christ' (the Hypostatic Union) advocated by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. This may seem like theological hair-splitting but for believers it is a foundational distinction between faiths. Further, Ethiopia's Christianity is a faith rather like Hinduism in its protean ability to sustain an infinity of contradiction. It is a faith that allows for God and Jesus and Heaven and Hell and a patron saint of rain. A faith in which believers still scratch out the glaring eyes of church mural devils for fear of the Evil Eye; a faith that leaves space for mystery, for the possibility that not all things have or need solutions. This marvellous, mystical, semi-pagan religion reminds me yet again of that great failure of my Western mind: the need for closure, for the smug comfort of an answer backed by empirical evidence. Observing the devout in Lalibela, I am reminded that misplaced rationalism is finally a kind of sad intellectual fetishism, and the banalization of human experience. I admire (and envy) some of the world's cultures for their denial of this reduction, for their uncompromising embrace of the all. But then again, as the poet Anne Sexton wrote: "Need is not quite faith."
One more thing: the place is virtually deserted. No line-ups. Few group tours. Excellent.
Dayna in front of a tunnel that leads down to one of the churches. Keep in mind that all the images here were taken below ground level as the churches were carved downward into the bedrock.
Wall niches not occupied by mummies are still used as places to bed down for the night by visiting pilgrims.
Look closely and you'll see Day standing in the bottom left corner by Bet Amanuel (12th-13th Century AD), a monolithic rock-hewn church constructed in the chunky 'Art-Deco' style of the older Aksumite culture.
Every church (there are eleven) has an attendant monk and ceremonial short-armed cross sceptre. This one is brass and has biblical scenes engraved on it, but there is one we saw that was 7kg, solid gold, and was once stolen by a Belgian tourist!
Several-centuries old murals.
Wooden entry door with iron-stud reinforcements.
Priests and pilgrims carry these staves, which they place under their armpits or chins to rest while standing for hours and praying.
Interior altar with seven hundred year old Amharic Bible, one of the oldest not kept in a vault somewhere by the Vatican.
Interior niche with stacked firewood for pigrims.
Round, two-story dwelling unique to the area; juniper tree, and pilgrim.
Morning light on a pilgrim at prayer.
The Biblical scholar of Lalibela.
As above.
This woman has brought an offering of grain to be blessed by the church priest.
Pilgrims at the cave church of Yemrehanna Christos. The area surrounding the church is one massive bone garden. It's rumoured that over the centuries some 10,000 pilgrims have come to die and be laid at this holy site.
Interior arches and abstracted cross patterns.
Priest with scepter.
Blurry priest with scepter.
Very old pilgrim at Yemrehanna Christos. Wasn't too talkative...
There once was a baby named Ned. Who fell and cracked his head. Well, poor little Ned's dead...and likely in a better place than I'm going.
Yemrehanna Christos. Olive wood and marble. Very little deterioration over time. Floats on a marsh suspended on an olive-branch platform above a bone-garden in a cave in Northern Ethiopia. Spooky and cool.
Everywhere in Ethiopia there are Fooseball (sp?) and Ping-pong tables set up street-side with gangs of very serious kids playing and gambling a Birr or two on the outcome.
The most famous church in Lalibella: the masterpiece that is Bet Giyorgis, a fifty-foot tall freestanding church sculpted downward into the rock in the shape of a monumental Greek Cross. At this time of day the church seems to float above the blackness of its shadow. Stunning.
The roof of Bet Giyorgis seen from ground level.
Mummified pilgrim feet in the niches of Bet Giyorgis.
My shadow against the church.
Floating...
Priest with sceptre.
Staffs and spooky wall carving.
Interior altar.
Detail of fenestration (windows).
Swastika/cruxiform windows.
This church is ringed in massive Grecian-style pillars that are pure decoration: the whole thing is a single piece of stone.
Colourful reading priest.
