ላሊበላ / Lalibela

History

There is some controversy as to when some of the churches were constructed. According to local tradition, in Ethiopia prior to his accession to the throne, Gebre Meskel Lalibela was guided by Jesus on a tour of Jerusalem, and instructed to build a second Jerusalem in Ethiopia. Accordingly, Lalibela, traditionally known as Roha, was founded during the Zagwe dynasty under the rule of King Gebre Meskel Lalibela (r. ca. 1181–1221), although it is more likely that the churches evolved into their current form over the course of several phases of construction and alteration of preexisting structures. David Roden Buxton established the generally accepted chronology, noting that "two of them follow, with great fidelity of detail, the tradition represented by Debra Damo as modified at Yemrahana Kristos." Since the time spent to carve these structures from the living rock must have taken longer than the few decades of reign of Gebre Meskel Lalibela, Buxton assumes that the work extended into the 14th century. However, David Phillipson, professor of African archeology at University of Cambridge, has proposed that the churches of Merkorios, Gabriel-Rufael, and Danagel were initially carved out of the rock half a millennium earlier, as fortifications or other palace structures between 600 and 800, during the days of the Kingdom of Aksum, and that King Lalibela's name simply came to be associated with them after his death. On the other hand, local historian Getachew Mekonnen credits Queen Meskel Kibra, Lalibela's wife, with having one of the rock-hewn churches, Biete Abba Libanos, built as a memorial for her husband after his death. Recent archaeological excavations at Lalibela have yielded abundant pottery and faunal remains dating to 900–1100, indicating that the site was…