Lalibela

Lalibela (old Roha ) is a monastic city located in the middle of the Ethiopia, in a mountainous region, the province of Wollo. It owes its name to the king Gebra Maskal Lalibela (1172 - 1212), canonized by the Ethiopian Église, which made build many convents and churches, after being converted with Christianity.

Holy City of the Christians of Ethiopia, it remains famous for its eleven churches monoliths medieval cut and dug with same the rock, of which most famous, Saint-Georges.

The sanctuaries of Lalibela are separate in two groups by the channel of Yordanos, supposed to represent the the Jordan. The installation of the site was conceived so that its topography corresponds to a notation symbolic of the Holy Land, from where its name of " Jerusalem Noire".

A cross monolith marks the starting point of a crowned course carried out by the pilgrims. The church Bieta Medani Alem or “House of the Saver of the world”, highest and vastest of the site, is presented in the form of a reproduction of the Église Holy-Marie-of-Sion, of Axoum, destroyed in 1535 by the armies of the Moslem invader Gragne. Deprived of paintings, it is divided into five great naves.

Bieta Maryam, the “House of Marie”, Bieta Maskal, the “House of the Cross” and Bieta Denaghel, the “House of the Virgins martyrdoms”, present varied decorations and installations symbolic systems which testify to the originality of Ethiopian Christianity. The “house of Emmanuel” and the church of Gabriel and Raphaël are the two most remarkable buildings among those which were built on southern bank of Yordanos.

The site was classified with the world heritage of UNESCO in 1978 (Criteria: C (I) (II) (III)).

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