Who Built the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela?

Lalibela’s eleven medieval churches were cut into volcanic rock and linked by trenches, courtyards, and passages. Several are monolithic: workers removed the surrounding rock, then carved the exterior and hollowed the interior from the remaining block. The churches have served worshippers for centuries and remain in use today.

The traditional account centers on King Gebre Meskel Lalibela. Archaeology suggests a longer and more complicated sequence. Understanding the site requires both.

The Zagwe Dynasty and the King Called Lalibela

The story begins with the Zagwe dynasty, an Agaw monarchy that ruled northern Ethiopia from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD. Their capital was a town called Roha, a modest highland settlement that would become one of Christendom's holiest places.

Written king lists differ on the number and order of Zagwe rulers. Gebre Meskel, whose name means "Servant of the Cross" in Ge'ez, is remembered by the name Lalibela.

According to tradition, when Gebre Meskel was born in 1162, a swarm of bees surrounded the infant. His mother, Kirwerna, took this as a prophecy. She named him Lalibela, meaning "the bees recognise his sovereignty" in Old Agaw. The prophecy made him a target. His uncle and brother, fearing his destined rise, drove him into exile.

Church tradition says that Christ guided Lalibela through Jerusalem and instructed him to build a second Holy City in the Ethiopian highlands. Lalibela is also said to have traveled to Jerusalem during his years in exile. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Golgotha, and the River Jordan became part of the sacred geography associated with his reign.

When Lalibela returned to Ethiopia and claimed the throne around 1181, Jerusalem was becoming harder for Ethiopian Christians to reach. Saladin’s forces captured the city in 1187. Tradition connects that history to Lalibela’s effort to establish a new pilgrimage center in the highlands.

He renamed Roha after himself and began the project that would consume the next two decades of his reign.

Carving Churches from Solid Rock

Several churches use subtractive architecture: workers cut down into the rock, isolated a block, shaped its exterior, and excavated the rooms within it. Other structures are partly attached to the surrounding rock or occupy caves.

The builders worked through volcanic stone that varies in hardness and condition. Planning had to account for the intended walls, columns, openings, drainage, and interior spaces before too much material was removed.

The process worked from the top down:

1. Tracing: Workers marked the perimeter of the planned church on the rock surface.
2. Trench excavation: Deep trenches were cut around the perimeter, isolating a massive block from the surrounding bedrock.
3. Exterior carving: Walls, windows, doors, and decorative elements were sculpted from outside, working downward.
4. Interior hollowing: The interior, nave, aisles, columns, vaults, ceilings, was excavated last, carved from the inside of the solid block.

Workers used hand tools, and scholars have also discussed heating and cooling as a way to fracture rock. Because columns, arches, and walls remained connected to the bedrock, major carving errors were difficult to repair.

The builders also engineered sophisticated hydraulic drainage systems to prevent flooding from underground water. The roofs of the freestanding churches slope at the same angle as the surrounding rock, directing rainwater away. Cisterns and baptismal pools were carved into courtyards, fed by the same drainage network.

The Eleven Churches

The churches are arranged in three groups, separated by the Yordanos, a stream deliberately carved through the rock as a symbolic representation of the River Jordan.

The Northern Group

Bet Medhane Alem (House of the Saviour of the World) is believed to be the largest monolithic rock-hewn church in the world: 33.7 meters long, 23.7 meters wide, 11.5 meters high. It stands on 72 pillars, 34 external and 38 internal, and is thought to be modeled on the ancient Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum. Inside, it houses the famous Lalibela Cross, reportedly made of seven kilograms of gold.

Bet Maryam (House of Mary), considered the oldest of the eleven, is adorned with the richest interior decorations: painted geometric patterns, animal motifs, biblical scenes, and an exterior frieze of horsemen. Its central "Pillar of Jacob's Ladder" bears inscriptions in Ge'ez, Hebrew, and Arabic, wrapped in cloth since the 16th century, its full contents unknown. Three baptismal pools fill the courtyard.

Bet Golgotha and Bet Mikael are twin churches joined together. Bet Golgotha contains life-size bas-relief carvings of the twelve apostles, unique among all the Lalibela churches, and replicas of Christ's tomb and Adam's tomb. It is also where King Lalibela himself is buried. Women are traditionally not permitted to enter Bet Golgotha.

Bet Meskel (House of the Cross) and Bet Denagel (House of Virgins) are smaller chapels adjoining the main churches. Bet Denagel, the smallest of all eleven, is dedicated to the nuns martyred by Roman Emperor Julian and contains a painting of Saint George and the dragon.

The Southern Group

Bet Amanuel (House of Emmanuel) is the finest example of Aksumite architectural revival at Lalibela. Completely freestanding at 18 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 12 meters high, its walls deliberately alternate between protruding and indented layers, mimicking the ancient Aksumite technique of stacking horizontal beams with mortar and stones. It served as the royal family's private chapel.

Bet Gabriel-Rufael (House of the Archangels) has a fortress-like exterior and is accessed via a walkway high above a moat-like trench. A sloping sliver of rock known as the "Way to Heaven" leads to the entrance. Some scholars, particularly David Phillipson of Cambridge, believe this structure may originally have been a fortified palace dating to the 7th century, centuries before King Lalibela, later converted to a church.

Bet Merkorios (House of St. Mercurios) is reached through a dark underground tunnel that is often interpreted as a passage through hell before emergence into light. Painted surfaces and iron ankle shackles have contributed to suggestions that the space once served as a prison or court of law. Phillipson dates its earliest carving to between 600 and 800 AD.

Bet Abba Libanos (House of Abbot Libanos) is unique in construction: hewn into a cliff face with only the roof and floor remaining attached to the strata, while the walls are free from the surrounding rock. Legend holds that Queen Meskel Kibra, Lalibela's wife, built it in a single night with the help of angels. She is buried inside.

Bet Lehem (House of Holy Bread), named after Bethlehem as part of the New Jerusalem symbolism, has oval walls and low ceilings, and may originally have functioned as a royal bakery rather than a church.

Bet Giyorgis

Standing to the west of the main groups, Bet Giyorgis (Church of St. George) is Lalibela’s best-known church. Its cruciform plan is visible from the rim of the excavated court, and cross motifs repeat across the roof.

The church rises roughly 12 to 15 meters from the floor of its excavated court. Unlike several larger churches in the complex, its interior does not require rows of supporting pillars.

A descending rock-cut route and short tunnel lead into the court. From the rim, the roof reads as a cross below ground; from the court, the full height and carved openings become clear.

Tradition identifies Bet Giyorgis as the last church completed and links its foundation to a vision of Saint George. Its date and construction sequence should be presented as part of that tradition rather than as settled archaeological fact.

A New Jerusalem in the Highlands

The churches form a sacred landscape associated with Jerusalem and other places in the biblical story.

The Yordanos stream, carved through volcanic tuff to divide the northern and southern church groups, represents the River Jordan where Christ was baptized. A rock-hewn cross marks the symbolic place of baptism along its banks. Bet Golgotha takes its name from Calvary, where Christ was crucified; it contains replicas of Christ's tomb and Adam's tomb. Bet Lehem is named for Bethlehem. A hill overlooking the site is called Mount Tabor, after the mountain of the Transfiguration.

Tunnels and passages connect parts of the complex and can carry symbolic readings of darkness, descent, and emergence into light. Local explanations vary, and practical circulation is part of their history too.

Tradition and archaeological evidence

Ethiopian Orthodox tradition holds that people worked during the day and angels continued at night. Some accounts compress the work into a single miraculous night. A sixteenth-century Portuguese visitor recorded that the churches were attributed to angels. These traditions explain sacred authorship; they do not function as a construction chronology.

An 1882 Ethiopian manuscript offers a different account: King Lalibela and his wife brought approximately 500 skilled workers from Alexandria and Jerusalem, led by someone named Sidi Meskal. These workers were referred to as "Europeans", a tantalizing detail that raises more questions than it answers.

Modern scholars generally agree that the complex was built in four or five phases spanning the 7th through 13th centuries. Archaeological excavations have uncovered pottery and faunal remains dating to 900-1100 AD, indicating the site was a secular settlement before King Lalibela transformed it into a religious center. Some structures, particularly Bet Gabriel-Rufael and Bet Merkorios, may have started as palaces or fortifications and were later converted to churches.

David Phillipson has argued that the oldest rock-hewn features date to the seventh or eighth century, earlier than the traditional chronology. Claude Lepage and Jacques Mercier have defended a more concentrated program under King Lalibela. The sequence remains debated.

UNESCO and the Fight to Preserve

UNESCO inscribed the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela on the World Heritage List in 1978 as property number 18. The listing recognizes their architecture, the medieval Ethiopian civilization that produced them, and their relationship to Jerusalem in Ethiopian Christianity.

But recognition has not meant easy preservation. The volcanic tuff that made the churches possible also makes them vulnerable. Water infiltration through roofs and walls erodes the soft rock over time. Changing rainfall patterns threaten the delicate balance of the original drainage systems.

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) began conservation work at Lalibela in the 1960s, funded by the US government, training Ethiopian workers in restoration techniques. That program ended when Ethiopia's government fell to revolutionaries in 1974.

In 2008, the European Union funded a €9.1 million project to erect large protective shelters over five of the most vulnerable churches. The shelters were meant to be temporary, designed for ten years while a permanent solution was developed. As of 2026, they remain in place, over seventeen years later. ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) opposed the shelters from the start. The local community has expressed concern about falling screws and the shelters' structural integrity, fearing they could collapse onto the very churches they were meant to protect.

The French Development Agency (AFD) is now investing over €8.3 million in a comprehensive preservation program: emergency restoration of fragile areas, conservation of interior paintings and sculptures, training of 80 Ethiopian students in heritage management, archaeological research, and a digital archiving project. The CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) leads the work, adapting during the 2021-2022 conflict by shifting training to Addis Ababa while maintaining on-site operations.

Living Churches, Not Museum Pieces

Lalibela's churches remain active places of worship. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians gather here for ordinary services and major feast days; priests chant in Ge'ez; pilgrims pray, fast, and move through the same carved landscape visitors come to see.

During Genna (Ethiopian Christmas, January 7), tens of thousands of pilgrims walk for days through the highlands to attend all-night vigils in these churches. During Timkat (Epiphany, January 19), replicas of the Ark of the Covenant are processed through the streets. During Meskel (September 27), bonfires blaze while the community sings together.

The New Jerusalem tradition still shapes how worshippers understand and use the site. Conservation therefore has to protect both the stone and the religious life carried within it.