Start at the Top—and Look Down

Bete Giyorgis, the Church of Saint George, provides perhaps the clearest visual explanation of Lalibela's construction.

From above, the church appears as a Greek-cross-shaped structure standing within a deep rectangular excavation.

But the church was not lowered into that trench.

Nor was it assembled from blocks carried to the site.

The builders began with the natural rock itself.

They excavated downward around the mass that would become the church and then carved that remaining mass into architectural form.

The technique therefore resembles what we encountered at India's Kailasa Temple:

remove the surrounding rock and leave the building behind.

Ethiopia's official tourism information likewise identifies Bete Giyorgis as a freestanding monolithic church carved in the shape of a cross.

Additional reference: Visit Ethiopia — Lalibela

Lalibela Is Not One Monument

Bete Giyorgis has become the photographic symbol of Lalibela, but concentrating on that single church can create the same problem that the Treasury creates at Petra.

Lalibela is an interconnected complex of eleven rock-hewn churches.

UNESCO divides them into two principal groups separated by a seasonal channel known symbolically as the Jordan River.

Churches, courtyards, trenches, tunnels and ceremonial passages interact with one another across the landscape.

Some churches are monolithic—isolated from the surrounding rock on multiple sides. Others remain partly attached to the natural rock mass.

The result is much more than eleven separate holes carved into a hillside.

It is an intentionally organized sacred landscape.

The Builders Had to Create the Space Around the Buildings

Conventional architecture usually begins with open space.

A builder erects walls within that space.

At Lalibela, the problem can be almost reversed.

Where a monolithic church was carved below ground level, builders first had to create the open space surrounding the building.

Courtyards had to be excavated.

Trenches had to be cut.

Passages had to connect different parts of the complex.

Interior rooms then had to be carved within the remaining architectural mass.

The builders were therefore designing both solid form and empty space.

Not Every Lalibela Church Looks Like Bete Giyorgis

Bete Medhane Alem provides a useful contrast.

Instead of the compact cross-shaped form associated with Bete Giyorgis, Bete Medhane Alem presents an elongated monumental form surrounded by rows of pillars.

Ethiopia's official tourism information identifies it as the world's largest rock-hewn excavation and notes its extensive internal and external pillars.

The variation is important.

Lalibela was not produced by repeatedly cutting the same church design into the ground.

Different structures have different plans, proportions and architectural characteristics.

UNESCO similarly notes that some churches use basilica forms and imitate architectural elements from earlier periods while differing from one another in design and style.

Reference: UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Lalibela, Rock-Hewn Churches

Additional reference: Visit Ethiopia — Lalibela

The People Complete the Picture

Empty architectural photographs can make Lalibela look like a civilization that disappeared long ago.

That interpretation would be misleading.

Priests still serve the churches.

Worshippers still enter them.

Pilgrims still travel to Lalibela.

The buildings therefore occupy two historical worlds at once.

They are extraordinary surviving examples of medieval Ethiopian architecture, but they are also functioning parts of contemporary religious life.

Lalibela is heritage that is still being used for the purpose that gave it meaning.

Now We Can Return to the Original Question

We began at Petra and asked why monumental structures carved from rock appear in places separated by enormous distances.

We have now encountered:

• Egyptian rock-cut temples;
• Persian royal cliff tombs;
• Lycian architectural tomb façades;
• Nabataean Petra and Hegra;
• Indian monasteries and monolithic temples;
• Cappadocian churches and underground settlements; and
• Ethiopia's medieval churches at Lalibela.

Some were unquestionably connected.

Some existed within wider networks through which ideas could plausibly travel.

Others demonstrate how different civilizations can arrive at related architectural solutions independently.

The final page brings those categories together.

Continue to: Coincidence or Connection? Why Rock-Cut Buildings Look Alike