The Monoliths of Lalibela

This this this particular thing that people have made out of the earth. But in doing so, we're gonna get a chance to discuss a little history, a little theology, and perhaps, you know, overall introduce many of our listeners to uh, maybe a part of the world you haven't heard about, or a part of of our shared history that you may not be that familiar with. Because when you think of great constructions, you know what what comes to mind? You think of the Great Pyramids, the Great

Wall of China. Perhaps, you think of Stone Hinge, or the Zigarats of Mesopotamia, the meso American pyramids perhaps, and these are all fabulous. And these are just a few examples that we can turn to for amazing marvels of stonework, architecture, and construction throughout humanity's history. And with all of them we we revel in the study of their construction. Right, How did in many cases ancient people refine the raw earth itself into the necessary building blocks? How did they

transport all this stuff then to the building sites? And then how did they assemble these structures that end up standing you know, the test of millennia while the empires around them rise and fall, and yet these structures remain. You know, something we've discussed a number of times is the way these ancient structures, Uh, they demonstrate mysteries about about past engineering techniques that very often tend to cause people to want to go to to outlandish alternate hypotheses.

You know, all the ideas about how the pyramids were built. You always get the aliens hypothesis, and like, you know, why is it that people want to go there with that kind of thing rather than just thinking, wow, ancient people must have been so clever to come up with with ways of making such amazing structures with the limited tools they had, Right, Yes, like the The idea that ancient Egyptian humans built the pyramids is to my mind,

the plenty amazing. You don't have to go to the even more amazing and outlandish idea that aliens came from another world and showed them how to do it. I mean really that it's far more interesting to to examine the truth and see seek the truth of the situation, like how did actual humans carry this out? How did they, even with their you know, their limited technologies, figure out how to achieve these marvels. But it's not just the Pyramids.

I mean, I think it's fascinating that sooner or later an aliens hypothesis shows up for all of these, you know, for Stonehinge, for the to American Pyramids, for basically anything built in a pre modern period that still looks amazing today, right, And I mean really, if you if you wonder about anything that you maybe don't have a full grasp on how the pieces came together, Like say bread, it's easy to think, oh, Brad, just does not seem to make sense.

It must have been the gift of an alien culture. But we we talked about this before. We did a whole pair of episodes on ancient alien hypothesis and and what Karl Sagan had to say about it and other critics have had to say about it. Uh. But indeed, all of these, uh, these locations that I've mentioned already, you can find certainly find some ancient aliens folks out

there that are chiming in on it. And I also ran across some related to today's episode because but but we're not going to really get into that, because the real story is the amazing part. We're going to be discussing a particular example of construction that is really just as amazing as you know, making all these giant blocks,

bringing them together and building the pyram. But this particular example is also going to buck the traditional steps that we've discussed here, and we're gonna be looking at the centuries old Christian temples in Ethiopia that were not built from blocks of stone that were you know, chorried over

here and then brought together and then assembled into a building. Now, these are free standing monolithic churches that are each hewn from the solid red volcanic scoria underlaid by dark gray basalt, standing tall in the quarries from which they were sculpted. So Basically these were hewn out of solid stone. The quarry becomes the courtyard. Yeah, it's a building that is not built but released from the earth. Subtractive manufacturing of marvels.

It is. It is amazing. I was not familiar with these until just last week when I was looking around for an episode for us to do, and I was an really thought, oh, why don't we do Petra the the ruins in in Jordan's you know, with the where the architecture is built into the side of this um uh, this kind of like ravine situation. Right. If you think you've never seen these, uh, these rock hewn buildings, you probably have. They're featured, for example, in Indiana Jones in

The Last Crusade. They show up in several movies pet Petro specifically in this case. Right. So, so I was thinking, O Petro would be a good episode, and I started looking around about Indeed, Petra is fascinating. Perhaps will come

back to it. But then I was just looking around at other examples of of, you know, buildings that have been hewn from stone, and then these just really stood out as just the prime example, like the most extreme example of what you could do with subtractive manufacturing of an entire building to build, To construct a building by not even constructing it, by just carving away at solid stone until it is there with no need for bricks or mortar or wood or nails or any of this

architecture as sculpture. Yeah, so where will you find these? Will you will find them in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is of course the nation in Eastern Africa, and they stood there at least since the late twelfth century CE, though you know, we'll probably get into some of the dating in greater detail later, but first, just a few notes about Ethiopia in general. Modern Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second most populous

African nation after Nigeria. Ethiopia is also considered one of only two African nations never to be subjected to long term European colonization, the other being Liberia, and to be more specific, it was it was never. It was never colonized during that nineteenth century period where so much of Africa m wash, though it was occupied by Italy during the Second World War, but not and not long enough for there to be like true lasting cultural change. Because

of it. Still, throughout its history, it certainly came into contact with foreign ideas and influences, and we'll be discussing a major one here today. Because one of the other things you'll notice about Ethiopia is that its majority religion is the Ethiopian Orthodox Teawahito Church, what's known as an Oriental Orthodox Christian Church, and it dates back many centuries. There's also a sizeable Islamic population in Ethiopia, followed in

popularity by Protestants, traditional faiths Catholicism and Judaism. Now, of course, there are other fascinating things about Ethiopia as well. For instance, Ethiopian cuisine has certainly traveled well around the world. I think it's widely believed to be the origin place of coffee, this coffee and Uh and Okra as well. I was.

I chatted with Annie of our fellow podcast here in the Atlanta office Is a Saver, and I said, hey, have you guys done anything on Ethiopian cuisine because we can mention on the podcast, And they said that they had not yet, though they both love Ethiopian food. But they have done an episode in Okra and they've done an episode on coffee that'd get into those origins. I'd say those are two of my favorite plant based foods. Are you an ocra fan? Are you you one of

those people who thinks it's slimy? Oh? I love okra, and I love it because it is slimy, especially in gumbo, because it who acts as a thickening agent. So I I want there to be okra present in many a dish bus is great, it's great fried, it's great. Uh, it's great pickled. H. Yeah, I'm an ocra fan for sure. Okay, we're on the same page. I like it all those ways too. I also really like okra in Indian food. I feel like, yeah, it goes really good with Indian spices.

I feel like I've had it in Indian food before, but maybe not recently enough for it to really strike a cord. I'll have to seek it out. There was a restaurant here in town that made a really amazing curried okra and then and then they went out of business. All right, Well, let's talk in greater detail about Ethiopian Christianity then, because since we're focusing in on old Christian temples that were carved out of the ground in Ethiopia,

we should describe how Christianity came to East Africa. Sure, so, I was looking at a scientific paper that will make a brief reference to later in the episode. Uh and the authors of this paper Ethiopian scientists Aspho Wilson, us

Rot and yod aylu Uh. They point out in the background section of their paper that the broader tradition of rock Huan churches in Ethiopia is historically associated with the coming of a group of figures known as the Nine Saints, who were alleged to have journeyed from Egypt and Syria during the late fifth and early sixth centuries to preach the Gospel of Christianity in Ethiopia and more specifically, to spread and promote the monastic lifestyle. So I was digging

into this claim. I wanted to learn more about the Nine Saints, and this eventually led me down a path where I found a really awesome entry about Ethiopian Christianity and the Ethiopian monastic trade in a book called the Encyclopedia of Monasticism edited by the historian will Johnston. With this specific entry on Ethiopian monastic Christianity written by the Ethiopian American philologist get A. Chow Highly. I was treating this as well, and it is is quite quite a

fascinating entry. I just had no idea just how imported the monastic tradition was for just Ethiopian culture in general. Yeah yeah, so. Highly writes that due to the proximity of Ethiopia to the Middle East, some Christianity probably began to spread their organically as soon as the religion was founded. But Highly also claims that Ethiopian Christianity is a form of the religion that's kind of uniquely shaped by monks

and monastic influences. So what exactly would that mean. Well, monasticism is the tradition we associate with monks and nuns. It's the strain of a faith that calls for a radical lifestyle of religious devotion, often including thing is like vows of poverty or vows of chastity, or vows of silence or fasting, general seclusion from secular life. So you know, the priest or preacher within a religion might usually live

among the society preaching the faith. Meanwhile, the monk undertakes in some way to live outside the society, rejecting many of the comforts and pleasures of normal life, making their day to day habits and living conditions themselves kind of

a radical demonstration of faith. An interesting fact that the author points out is that it's currently really unknown how many monasteries are in Ethiopia because the government keeps track of churches, but not every monastery has a church, and not every mountain or wilderness center that is uh that it, you know, is historically a monastery is going to be

active today. But he lists quite a number of them, and he also mentions Ethiopian monasteries outside of the country, such as in Egypt where they that it looks like they now live along side Coptic Christian monks there, but then also in Jerusalem as well. Yeah, and we can come back to later on how these monasteries appear to

play a very important role in Ethiopian religious life. Uh So, there's a legend about the founding of the Ethiopian Christian Church recorded by the fourth century Christian historian and scholar tyranny Us Rufinus, who lived in what is now northern Italy. And the tale told by Rufinus goes something like this, So in the city of Tier which is in modern day Lebanon. You know, it's like tier in Sidon. Uh. There was once this philosopher named Meropius, and Meropius had

two young students named Frumentius and Adasus. Now, one day Europius decides he's going to set out on a sea voyage and travel to India, and he's going to bring his two students with him. But then tragedy strikes and their ship sinks outside of a port that Rufinus writes is in India, but it's apparently widely interpreted to be a confused attempt to reference Ethiopia, so this is believed often to be Ethiopia that he's talking about. And the two boys are rescued and taken to the royal court

of the capital city of Axom. This would have been the capital of what's known as the Axom Dynasty or the or the Kingdom of Axum, where they were given employment by the king and Frementius became the king's secretary, while Adasius became the king's butler, and through his position as secretary and his subsequent role instructing the young princes at the palace, Frementius was allegedly able to eventually convert

the entire royal court to Christianity. And from here it's written that Frementius encouraged the scattered Christians among the people of Axom to organize into a church and to a school for the Christian upbringing of children. And then when Frementius and Adasius were released from their positions in the court at Axom, Frementius allegedly went to Alexandria to convince the current archbishop there, Athanasius, to recognize the church in

Ethiopia and look after its well being. And in turn, Athanasius said, well, you'd be a good leader of that church, and so Athanasius and the other bishops decided to name Frementius Bishop of Acxim. So tradition says that in this way, Fromentius became the first bishop and the first apostle of Ethiopia, and he went throughout the kingdom preaching the peace of Christ, which is how he became known in the Ethiopian Christian

tradition as Abba Salama, which means Father Peace. Now Highly, however, casts doubt on the historical validity of this this foundational narrative, noting that local sources don't really mention anything significant about Frementius in this period, and that the historical evidence indicates the story was probably later introduced to Ethiopia after first

being written by other authors in Greek. Highly writes, quote, undoubtedly Frementius was a bishop consecrate did for Ethiopia by St. Athanaceous, but the local tradition has no memory of him and his efforts to Christianize Ethiopia. Doesn't history often work that way. You've got a good founding story, but then like the locals didn't record anything about it, so it seems like

it probably didn't quite happen that way. Yeah, or yeah, just in general, this um, this sort of push and pull between reality and myth and that area in between where you're not sure where the history ends in the myth begins. Yeah, it's always the way anyway. However, Highly writes that much of the Christianizing influence on Ethiopia and the following centuries did come from missionaries, primarily monks from

the Byzantine Christian world. And of course, you know, the Byzantine Empire at the time would have spanned much of the Mediterranean, so would have people of Byzantine influences could be coming from like Egypt or wherever right. And by the way, if you want a deeper dive into Byzantine culture and Byzantine history, we did an episode on Greek

fire year back that we recommend. Yes. Uh So, these these monks of the Byzantine Christian influence would be arriving individually and in groups roughly between the fifth and the seventh centuries. And the most famous of these Byzantine missionary monks are known locally in Ethiopian tradition as the Nine Saints. Now there's an interesting historical re contextualization that highly gives here.

He says that church historians generally believed that this group of missionaries was actually on a kind of factional theological mission. They were trying to get Ethiopia to take sides in a theological dispute that was going on in the church, or to stay on their side. Uh So, at the time, one of the major theological disputes rocking the Christian Church

was about the essential nature of Christ. And the question is this, did Jesus Christ have just one nature where he was entirely divine or entirely human, or did Christ have two separate natures, one of them earthly and one of them divine. Now, I know, with that kind of argument, I'm sure some people are kind of rolling your eyes,

like that doesn't sound like a super meaningful distinction. But disputes like this were rampant in the early Church, and they lead to bitter, agonizing power struggles and sometimes excommunication, accusations of heresy and all the concominant punishments and you know, etcetera. So these fights about the nature of Christ are known as christological disputes, and they these disputes are the origin of a lot of the dogmas that would later become

you know, widespread in in the Catholic Church. Yeah. I mean because when you start asking the question, you know, is was Christ human or divine? If you didn't say, oh, well there was, he was human or he had a human element, then you might say, well, how human was the human? Like it's like you are the rich clergy

or is he human? Like like we are the peasants. Uh. That's a really great point, especially because while some of these things, these distinctions might not sound super meaningful to us, they had implications, often like material political implications that aren't obvious if you just read about the pure theological dispute, that's one thing I love about the the Umberto Echo novel and the name of the Rose, which we've talked

about on the show before, is it. It deals with a lot of these angels dancing on the head of a pin kind of theological disputes, but also gives some shading about what their real world political and economic implications were right and how it ends up breaking down to

the suffering of at least the common man anyway. So anyway, the view that Christ had two separate natures, both divine and human, came to be known as Chalcedonianism after the Council of Chalcedon in four fifty one, which ended with the with a sort of uneasy consensus upon the two nature thing. And the view that Christ had only one

nature came to be known as monophysicism. And this view, the one nature view of monophysicism, was probably, at least according to this church historian interpretation, was probably represented by these figures known as the Nine Saints that you know, if this view is correct, They came to Ethiopia to make sure that the Ethiopian Church continued to preach one

nature in Christ and resist the two nature view. And you can also see how they would be sort of be seeking to to to get ahead to this far flung of the region of Christians and just ensure that they had the right version of the of the story. Right. Yes, yes, though Highly says wild this is the thing that's generally suspected by church historians. Nothing is certain. We don't know

for sure about all the motivations of these nine Saints. Locally, in Ethiopia, the Nine Saints are are not remembered for arguing any particular side of a Christological SmackDown. They're They're mainly remembered for strengthening the faith of the Ethiopian Church and for again emphasizing monasticism the monk lifestyle. Uh So, these nine Saints are said to have brought with them a number of important books, and these are widely believed to have included the books of the New Testament, but

also books of Christian doctrine and education. So, in evidence of the strong influence of monasticism and Ethiopia, Highly mentioned that one of the first books translated into the Ethiopian language at the time, known as Ghez, was a work known as the Monastic Rule of pac Homius, who was

the founder of the Synobitic monasticism tradition. Now, this is a type of monasticism that encouraged monks to live together in communities with other monks like the abbeys we would traditionally think of, rather than simply living individually as isolated hermits, which I think is the older view of the monk lifestyle. And of course you still saw examples of that in

Ethiopia as well. Right, yeah, yeah, you see both. Uh So maybe we should take a break and then when we come back we can talk about the Nine Saints. Than all right, we're back, so let's let's get to get to these nine saints. Who who were they? And what were they? What? What did they allegedly bring to Ethiopia? Okay, well highly mentions. Actually ten well remembered Byzantine monks, who

each founded a monastery in Ethiopia. The first one is not traditionally thought of as one of the nine saints, but he's historically very important and so he bears mentioning. This is Libanos or Mata, and legend has it that he heard the call to a monastic life on his wedding night. That is that is bad timing, dude, or perfect timing. I guess you know, I guess so. Uh. So on his wedding night, he's like, oh, oh no, wait, I've got to take a vow of celibacy. I gotta

go be a monk. So he runs off to do that. Uh. And he apparently went to Ethiopia, where he founded a monastery and helped an Ethiopian monk translate one of the Gospels into gez Uh. And then the next are who are traditionally thought of as the Nine Saints. I'm not going to mention biographical details or legends about all of them, just a couple of them. So the first one is named Aragawi or Zamikhaiel, and he is known as the

leader of the Nine Saints or the Elder. Zamikhaiel is also an appellation that means like devoted to Michael uh and on the so, the the Nine Saints supposedly traveled from Egypt to Ethiopia with Zamikhael as their leader, and legend says that quote the saint used a long serpent as a rope to ascend the impregnable summit of Mount Damo, where he built his monastery. All right, so they all build a monastery. This guy uses a snake to climb

a mountain and builds a monastery on top of the mountain. Uh. And this is a mountain top monastery that still exists today. Obviously historians do not think he actually is a snake to climb the mountain, but uh, there is really a monastery there. It is attributed to him. It's in the region of t Gray and it's famous for being only accessible by a rope assisted ascent up a steep cliff side. So you really do have to climb a rope up a cliff to get to this monastery. That that sounds terrifying.

And and I also think that that might be the point of it, because there was there was another cliff side or a mountain top sanctuary that we that we ran across. I was looking at a video from Great Big Story about this, and I think there's also uh that there's been a BBC videos about it as well. Uh, this is this other one is known as Abuna Yamata Go or the Church of St Abuna Yamata. Yeah, and the video I watched showed how to to climb it.

First of all, you have to climb at barefoot um and then the final stretch is like This is after you've actually ascended to to height on level with this small little monastery that's built into the cliff. You have to walk along this cliff side trail to the entrance and it's just a sheer drop to your left. Uh. And the the narrator was talking about just how it's it's terrifying, and then you're inside the sanctuary and I can't help I mean, part of that, of course, it's

just nature of the location. But the other part is I can imagine that you're you're walking along this ledge and it is this terrifying um ordeal. You know, you're imagining yourself plummeting and falling and dying, and then you emerge into this this decorated cavern with these images painted on the walls, and you're in this Holy Shank sanctuary. Uh,

just you know, secluded from everything else. Yeah. I think what you're emphasizing there is that the seclusion, the isolation, the inaccessibility, and the danger are not bugs but features. They're part of the religious experience generated in getting to this this place belief to be holy. Right, So I can see the same situation being in place if you're having to climb this this rope to finally emerge into

a sanctuary. Yeah. An interesting note on the same subject, but this is from a different part of Gatacio Highly's history. Highly also writes that there are two words meaning monastery. Uh. He doesn't say the language specifically, but I'm pretty sure he's talking about m hark the, the Ethiopian language of today. But he says that these two words today meaning monastery. The first word is dabber, which literally comes from the

word meaning mountain, as in Mount Sinai. And then the other word is goddam, which means which comes from a word meaning wilderness, as in John the Baptist referring to himself as a voice crying out in the wilderness. Uh. And I loved that. That's so interesting. So you've got these two words both mean monastery, one means mountain, and

one means wilderness. Yeah, that's great. I mean that that ties in nicely with topics we've discussed in the show before, how high elevation can can impact the mind and then also the recharging effects of being in a natural environment. Yeah. And I think you read this part also where he talks about that they do sometimes refer to different types of monasteries like the Dauber Monastery would be a monastery that is on top of a mountain, or is a

certain type of like major officially recognized monastery. Meanwhile, a goddam monastery I think can be more like is uh, can be more unofficially recognized, or can be anywhere, right, Yeah, and so that thus it becomes very difficult to actually have a good count on how many Ethiopian monasteries exist. Yeah uh so so that was anyway the legacy of

the first of the nine saints. The second one is known as Pentaluon or Pentaleon, called Pentaluon of the Cell because he allegedly never once left his tiny cell after he entered it. So this guy, one of the vows he takes is a vow to be sealed in this room. He keeps his vow to remain inside for forty five years until his death. The next one is Yesshak or Isaac or Garima, so that many of them have multiple names they're known by. This one is believed to have

been born a prince but then became a monk. Uh, there's aftsy. His hagiographer writes that he never died, but instead ascended directly into heaven like Elijah or like Jesus. Yeah, so so far. Each of these are kind of hitting on like sort of traditional tropes of the holy Man or the hernet or uh. Certainly the prince that becomes a holy man is very much in keeping with the Buddha. Yes, yes, uh, And then you got the next five. No bio details

on these. Highly didn't have much about them except like when their feast days are celebrated. But you've got Gubba, a Left, Yamata, Lekanos, and Sema and Highly writes that the monks you would meet in Ethiopia today often like to trace their lineage to one of the Nine Saints, so they can say, oh, I'm of the tradition of Yamata or I'm of the tradition of Pantaluon. But anyway, this period, the Nine Saints period, would be the fifth to sixth century, and this appeared to be a boom

time for Christianity and monks in Ethiopia. Highly mentions that an Egyptian monk named Cosmos into Coopliasts wrote of visiting the coastal regions of Ethiopia along the Red Sea in the year five five, and that Indocopliasts wrote at the at the time that the churches and the monasteries in Ethiopia were thriving. However, sometime in the next few hundred years, definitely by the tenth century, the political and religious power center of the city of Axom and the and the

Axom Empire was reduced to ruins. And the cause of this is not known for sure, though there are some unsubstantiated legends about an uprising against the Church by non Christians, but uh, we don't know exactly what happened there. But eventually Highly writes that the power vacuum was filled by a new rule dynasty, the Zagway, which lasted until around twelve seventy. Yeah, I was, I was reading about this, this uprising in the history of Ethiopia by sahed A

A Dajumbi. The and basically the chief antagonist that has attributed to what is sometimes called the Ethiopian Dark Age was the non Christian Queen good It. She up, according to these these stories, usurped the throne by force and reign for forty years, and then passed the crown onto her descendants, who were then eventually overthrown by Mara Takla Hemanat an Aga overlord and then Um. This overlord married a female descendant of the Oxomite monarchs of old and

started the Zaga dynasty. Uh that you mentioned already. But there are apparently a lot of inconsistencies about good It about you know, who she was, where she came from, what exactly she did, aside from decimating Um the capital and overturning the prior rule UM. So it seems rather difficult to separate a history and the mythology. Uh. There's often the details of one story conflict with those of another.

For instance, in one telling, at least she has described as being of Jewish origin, thus good At Judith there being potentially some connection there. Yeah, highly doesn't seem to credit the story from what I can tell. He He mentions that the names applied to this woman, for example, like like good Itt or Isato if she existed, are probably not even her real names, but their derogatory terms applied to her by people who saw her as a villain, if she was in fact a real figure. So this

period seems murky, right. But whatever led from the collapse of the Axom kingdom to the foundation of the Zugway dynasty. It's under the Zugwa kingdom that the rock hun churches of Lali Bella are traditionally said to have been designed and constructed. So let's turn to the king Lali Bella. Yes, a lot Bella, the namesake of of of the city of Lolli Bella, Emperor Gabre Mescal Lalli Bella, who lived one through twelve twenty one, and who again was part

of the Zaguay dynasty. That dynasty lasted from the year nine hundred to the year twelve seventy. I think that's got to be a rough estimate on the beginning of it, right, yeah. Um, So, I've seen it alleged in several sources that the name of this king, that Lolli Bella, means something about bees, like quote, his sovereignty is recognized by bees, or that

it just means surrounded by bees. I have not found that claim source to its origin or explained anywhere that looked too solid to me, So a question mark on that one. But I hope it's true because I like it. It's a It's an absolutely wonderful, magical gimmick for a monarch. They're surrounded by bees, and yeah, I did. Really, this whole dynastic um struggle that we're describing here, I just I mean, ethiop in history is amazing, and I'm glad

that I'm finally digging into it. So, so the Zaguay dynasty had they had to make their capital in a new location. The previous one had been decimated by the prior rule. So they made their capital in Roa, which later took the name of the monarch that we're talking about, Lolli Bella. So Loli Bella is best remembered today for those these monoliths that he builds or has built, or completes the building building off. You mean the rock you

in churches, Yes, the rocky in churches. Yeah, either he the tales you know differ, but either he commanded their construction or he oversaw their completion. At any rate, his name is kind of like stamped on them. Historically. I think there's one other version in which his widow had at least one of the churches built in her husband's memory. Okay, now that's the traditional telling. I was reading a short essay about the churches by a scholar of African arts

named Kristen Windmiller. Luna, and she points out that archaeologists have not actually established precise dates for the construction of the different parts of the Lolli Bella complex, but that the most common view among scholars is that these churches were probably actually constructed in stages over a longer period of time, maybe in like four or five different phases between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries. But again we

don't really know for sure. And in addition to the traditional description to Lolli Bella, the king's reign would fall right towards the end of this hypothetical multi phase construction period. Yeah, so at any rate, his name is highly associated with them, and of course the town bears his name. Um And now there are some other stories you'll encounter out there about that have alternate hypotheses for their creation. There was one I saw mentioned in a BBC article even stating

that the knights templars may have created them. But I don't think anybody really gives those stories a lot of uh, you know, they don't give them a lot of aten. And I think this is the primary hypothesis that everyone agrees with. Wait by history channel logic is or the Knights templars. Also, is that the same as the aliens hypothesis because the Knights templars were Aliens. Knights templar extremism

is like a gateway to ancient Aliens. You know, if you if you just keep following and you keep just really, if you really want everything to be the Knights templars, at the end of it, you're just gonna wind up an ancient Aliens territory. Yeah, that's my take on it. Not that the templars are not in and of themselves fascinating. Uh and I'd actually love to come back to them on invention. I think they arguably factor into some uh

certainly some economic inventions of over time. Okay, but but anyway, that's for another that's for another day. But let's explore that traditional story attributing the rock you in churches directly to Lolli Bella. Now, of this, though, there are two different versions, at least that I came across. One is that Lolli Bella had himself visited Jerusalem sometime around say even eight seven, just before the Crusader health city fell

back into the hands of Islamic forces. So, like many Christians at the time, many Christians of means would have wanted to make a pilgrimage to what they believe is the birthplace of Christ for like religious devotion, and so he would have made this pilgrimage potentially, yes. Now another version is that he didn't actually travel there, but he saw Jerusalem in a dream. Uh, and particularly probably in a dream after its fall back into Islamic hands. Wait

a minute, I just made a big mistake. I said birthplace of Christ. Jerusalem is not the birthplace of Christ, but is it very important in Christian tradition. Sorry, yeah, he came into Jerusalem on a donkey, but in none of the gospels doesn't say he was born in Jerusalem. Sorry, I just had to clean that up. Oh yeah, no worries. Well, in either case, either he visited Jerusalem and then it fell, or Jerusalem fell and then he saw a vision of

it in his dreams. But then it becomes clear to him I need to create a new Jerusalem right here in Christian Ethiopia. And then uh, since no one can travel to Jerusalem now among the Christians, Uh, then all the Ethiopian Christians can simply travel here and and have

a religious experience here in this city. And so thus the creation of these eleven monolithic churches, each plunging up to fifty meters in the earth are roughly one hundred and sixty four feet And of course, the idea again would be that since Christian pilgrims could no longer direct to Jerusalem, this would serve as a new center of pilgrimage. And indeed it does remain an important pilgrimage destination for

Ethiopian Christians. Christmas Eve, which is known as Genna in Um in Ethiopian traditions, is a favorite is a favorite time to visit, with people walking hundreds of miles or more to visit the churches and engage in rights of fasting, prayer, and celebration. Yeah, and that's one thing that makes these

churches special. Today I was reading again in that piece by Kristen Windmiller Luna that some of the earliest of these structures may have originally served civic functions like as palaces or fortresses, but at some point they became these churches as destinations for pilgrimage, and their location makes them different from some of the you know, you would think of the big grand Catholic cathedrals that you might find in the middle of a huge city. Today, these churches

are somewhat remote. They're not in the center of the Ethiopian capital Adisa Baba the and so it makes sense to think of them as a site of pilgrimage. They're a place you would have to go to in a journey to show your devotion. Yeah. And and we're talking about visiting these sites on mountaintops and how there's like the physical ordeal of climbing up to reach them. And with these temples that are essentially, you know, just dug out of out of these quarries in the earth, you

have to climb down to visit them. Like they're accessible via like steep winding stairs and tunnels and uh, you know tunnel complexes. So you have you have a very similar situation, except instead of an ascent, it is a descent. So let's look at these eleven churches, all right. So, um, they're arranged into three groups and each one difference in exact size, rock color, architectural style and um. According to UNESCO, because they are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, their translated names

are as follows. There's the House of the Savior of the World and this is thought to be the largest of these monolithic churches. There's the House of Mary. There's the House of the Cross. There's the House of Virgins. There's the House of Golgotha Michael, which contains life size depictions of the twelve Apostles carved into the walls, and apparently only four are visible to the public and the others are kept hidden behind like drapes and curtains. There's

the House of Emmanuel. There's the House of Saint Merkrios and this was possibly a former residence. There's the House of Abbott Libanos, the House of Gabriel Raphael. This was also possibly a former residence. There's the House of Holy Bread, and then finally there is the House of St. George. This is the one if you if you see like an Instagram post for this podcast episode, this is the image you're seeing because it has this kind of cruciform

plan to it. Uh, shaped like a cross, specifically a Greek cross, and if you view it from above, uh, it's it's it's really. When I first saw an image of it from above, I wasn't even sure I was looking at Yeah, there's a quality too. I think you were actually talking about this before we started recording. How it's the kind of architectural marvel that is difficult to appreciate from a single photograph because in only seeing it from one perspective, you don't really understand what's so marvelous

about it. You have to see, like, you have to see it from multiple different photos from different angles to start to appreciate it. Yes, absolutely, because photographs taken from uh, from down inside the the corey, the pit, where yard pit, the four yard pit, whatever you want to call it, like, those are impressive because you see this image of this building here just rising up and and if you don't know, you might just assume that it was built, that it

was constructed out of bricks, maybe surrounded by walls. Yeah, but then when you see it from above, it's like, what is this strange cross surrounded by uh, you know, by you know, pit on all sides that's just sort of emerging from the wilderness landscape all around it. Yeah. So again, this is the Church of St. George we're talking about. I guess let's take a closer look at this one to see what's so architecturally special about it. You you mentioned the idea of it plunging into the earth.

I think that's the perfect way to describe the Church of St. George. It doesn't rise up from the earth like a regular church or a regular building. It rises from the bottom of a pit. And the pit is a pit carved into natural rock. So as you approach the church, you're walking along a natural rock surface, not a paved area, but just exposed rock from planet Earth.

And as you keep going, you realize you are approaching a deep, rectangular hole in the ground with edges dropping straight off and from the from the top, you know, the lip of the pit down to the bottom. I think it's roughly twelve meters or forty ft roughly, the pit being maybe twenty five ms or about eighty feet

wide square. And then in the middle of this rectangular pit, there's this huge building in the shape of a Greek cross, as you mentioned, which looks kind of like a plus sign, approximately as tall as the ground you're standing on, though the edges of the pit are not exactly all at the same height, so it depends on where you're standing. Uh, it might be taller than where you are, might be

a little below you. But this cross shaped building in the center of the pit is the church, and as the name suggests, again, it's not built but carved directly out of the existing basaltic rock. It is one broken hunk of natural stone released from the earth by hammer and chisel. Yeah, it's just it's amazing to to even think about. And we've never been obviously, I look forward to hearing from anyone out there who has visited this site and can describe, uh, you know, what it was

like to to see this in person. But it's just it's such a drastically different model of making a building compared to everything else that has has been the norm. You know, it's not just the case for this church. I mean this is true of many types of sacred destinations and holy buildings, but it's weirdness makes it holy. Like the weirdness of the architectural construction here contributes to

the alienated, filth feeling. You get that that I think, you know, it's the same reason that you're far less likely to have a religious experience in a in a very normal building, in an office building full of cubicles and hallways with you know, carpeted floors and stuff, when

you go into a cathedral. This is not like the other buildings you go into, it's very weird, and the weirdness itself puts you in an in a kind of like disoriented, alienated state of mind that makes you prone to having feelings of connection with higher beings and stuff like that. And I think the architectural weirdness here probably

does a similar thing. Yeah, I mean, and it's probably the reason why some of the tails say that O the angels helped them constructed, you know, yes, which again is not to inspire anybody to go nuts with ancient aliens stuff here, but just like the idea that this is such a drastically different building from anything we're used to,

like the divine imprint is here. Yeah. Uh So. Another thing that's really cool about it is I mentioned you can walk up to the edge of this pit as the building rising up from the bottom of the pit. The edges of the pit are a straight drop off around all the sides. So how do you get into the church? Well, apparently the bottom of the pit is accessed via a narrow descending canyon and then which which turns into a tunnel that is carved into the rock

formation nearby. So again this is something where somebody had to carve an access ramp down through the existing native living rock there in this narrow tunnel, and then you come out in the courtyard below. Yeah, and I can only assume that you know this. This is again the monastic tradition, the idea of the importance of pilgrimage coming into play here, Like it is not a thing that should be easy to access. It is supposed to be

um a journey to the bottom. Now, apparently there are other openings in the walls of the this courtyard pit which gives access to chambers that can be used for different things like sometimes housing, I think, or storage or as crypts. Yeah. Unesco describes there being all these of these sites being connected via quote, drainage, ditches, trenches, and ceremonial passages, some of which opening to hermit caves and catacomb. Now I mentioned there was a there was a scientific

paper we were going to reference. Maybe we should take a break and then come back to to look at that real quick. Thank thank alright, we're back all right. So earlier we mentioned a scientific paper that would be examining some of the geological properties of these rock hewn churches, and so this paper was published in the Journal of African Earth Sciences called Geological and Geotechnical Properties of the

Medieval rock hewn Churches of Lolli Bella, Northern Ethiopia by Aspa. Wilson, as Rot and udt Lu and The authors here use a metric called the rock mass rating to characterize the constituents and the condition of the rocks that make up the churches of Lolli Bella, and they found that these churches are mostly carved from quote medium strength to strong intact scoriaceous basalt rocks. You know, what does scoriaceous basalt

rocks mean. Uh, scoriaceous rocks. Basalt rocks would be dark colored volcanic rocks with a porous or a vesicular texture, so pores or vesicles. What does that mean in rock terms? Well, these are little holes, basically little bubbles that are created when magma with dissolved gas content erupts and then is exposed to the surface, and then some of that dissolved gas volatilizes and forms bubbles which can become hardened into

the rock as the lava cools. Uh So, a very extreme form of this you might have encountered was probably something like pumice you know that has huge holes in it. Uh, This I think is not quite that porous, but still it's porous. It's got like holes and little tunnels and bubbles in it. It makes me think of cooking pancakes this description, think a little bubbles on top. It's pretty much exactly like. Uh. So, the authors find several threats

to the material integrity of the rock Huan churches. Uh that you know, the churches are are somewhat vulnerable bole to the elements. They write, quote, most of the rock hewn churches are affected by precrving, cooling joints, and bedding plane discontinuities, and by mostly but not necessarily post carving

tectonic and seismic induced cracks and fractures. So, for several reasons having to do with the existing you know, massive rock there and with things brought on by the carving and excavation of these building faces, there are cracks and fractures and vulnerabilities in the buildings and their structure. But they also say, uh, though most of the churches are hewn from medium to high strength rock, mass discontinuities make

them vulnerable to other deteriorating agents, mainly weathering and water infiltration. Again, it's not how hard to see how porous rocks are subject to water infiltration. Quote. The scoriaceous basalt, which is porous and permeable, allows easy passage of water, while the underlying basalt is impermeable, increasing the residents time of water in the porous material, causing deep weathering and subsequent loss of material in some of the churches and adjoining courtyards.

So while they're still beautiful to see today, these buildings are under some material strain. Yeah. I was reading about this um on UNESCO's website and they point Another thing they point out is the drainage ditches. We mentioned already that that's part of sort of the uh the system of tunnels and um and and ditches around these structures. It's a rock pit, you need some way to drain it, right.

But the thing is that those ditches were filled in with filled in with dirts some time ago, and this resulted in a lot of flooding and water damage over the years before they were then cleared out again in the early twentieth century. I guess that that's one of the things to keep in mind about structures that have existed for as long as these is, there's plenty of time for the v periods of neglect, even if they are not periods of of outright uh, you know, assault

on them. Um. So water damage occurred, then you already mentioned the seismic activity that does seem to have damaged them as well. As such, they are all in fairly degraded shape at this point and require monitoring, despite the construction of shelters over several of them. In fact, the House of Emmanuel, one of the eleven we've missed listed earlier, is listed as being in danger of collapse. Um. And those shelters too. And you'll see these shelters if you

look up pictures of these today. Uh. They're quite controversial as well, apparently because they're they're certainly sheltering these structures from the elements. Uh, but in some cases they might actually be damaging the very structures they're protecting. Uh. And some of them are arguably also at risk to collapse

during storms. And at the very least they impact the visual presentation and serve, according to the Associated Foreign Press as quote a symbol of the neglect that Lei Bella residents say they and the complex endure On top of this, there's the degradation to various painting, sculptures and bass reliefs

inside uh the temples. And UH. Even though the churches are protected by both the church and the state in Ethiopia, apparently this doesn't always translate into their being like a lot of support uh an effort given towards the needs, because there's still, according to um UNESCO quote, a need for stronger planning controls for the setting of the churches that addresses housing, land use, tourism, and for a management plan to be developed that integrates the conservation action plan

and addresses the overall sustainable development of the area with the involvement of the local population. Now I was looking around, it does seem like this remains uh, something is being discussed and um uh you know, UNESCO is still still discussing impossible plans to better protect these churches. And there has been increased attention even in the past year, with for instance, French President Emmanuel Macron visiting the site of

these churches in Ethiopia. Yeah, this race is something that has come up with a number of the topics we've done about you know, old wonderful pieces of architecture, which is that obviously, you know, it makes sense to put things in place to protect structures from being directly damaged

by human behavior. But when something is being sort of like naturally weathered, uh and and uh suffering, you know, just from the exposure to the natural forces that permeate the environment, I think, then it becomes harder to know exactly what to do. Like, so imagine you're just dealing with the issue of would it be better to put up a shelter over one of these churches to prevent

rain from falling on it or not? I mean, and so maybe putting that up, you would say, could prevent some water damage from accumulation over time, but also that

damage is relatively slow to happen. And in the meantime, everybody who goes on pilgrimage to this church, now the pilgrimage is under this big artificial shelter, right, And then I can only imagine that a site like this offers unique challenges as it is built, unlike buildings are typically constructed, you know, yeah, they're there are a number of concerns that come together here, and also coming back to just the nature of of buildings, the nature of sculpture, the

nature of anything humans have made something like like like this. Certainly from a human perspective, it is long lived, is very durable, It may even seem to be eternal. But from a geologic standpoint, it is quite frail. It is frailer than the thing that came before it, and uh, you know. Therefore, it's it's foolish to think that it will just be able to remain down there at the bottom of this uh this pit and uh you know,

and remain you know, untouched. No, I mean, it's it's going to follow the uh you know, the natural laws of erosion everything else, all right. So there you have at the churches of Lolli Belah in Ethiopia, Uh, just amazing structures. Again, we have not visited this this this side in person, but we know that since we have, we have listeners out there from all over the world, and we have listeners that are that are well traveled.

In many cases, we know some of you have been there and we would love to hear of your experiences. Or if you haven't actually been to these monolithic churches, perhaps you've been to some of the other monolithic churches and there are a handful elsewhere in the world. We'd love to hear about your experiences there. In the meantime, if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over to stuff to

Blow your Mind dot com. That will redirect you to one of the many places you can find if you can find the show wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. Just make sure that you subscribe, make sure that you rate and review us, and uh yeah, just tell a friend to let let someone else know that Stuff to Blow your Mind or our other show invention um you know, helps get you through the day or taught you something you didn't know about previously huge things.

As always to our awesome audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Radio