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At a time in Ethiopian history when foreign
contacts were significantly reduced, an inward-looking emphasis developed.
This is apparent in the manner in which Aksumite models continued
to be heavily drawn and elaborated upon. By the early twelfth century,
this was manifested in a complex of structures commissioned by a
new dynasty of rulers, the Zagwe, at their capital, Roha, some three
hundred kilometers south of Aksum. At this remote site in the Wollo
mountains, Ethiopian stone carvers, following inspired direction,
literally and irrevocably transformed their landscape into what has
been ranked a “wonder
of the world.” Credit
for patronage of this remarkable pilgrimage site is invariably given
the Zagwe king and saint Lalibela, who ruled in the early thirteenth
century (Munro-Hay, Ethiopia, 133; Garlake, 88). The awesome nature
of this achievement is reflected variously in its characterization
as the work of angels and the miracle that led to Lalibela’s canonization.
Marilyn Heldman has noted that according to Lalibela’s Life,
he was “taken
to heaven, where God showed him ten great structures, each with
a distinctive feature and color, all cut from a single stone.
God explained that Lalibela would become king of Ethiopia so that
he could direct the excavation from living rock of churches that
followed these divine archetypes” (Heldman, 27–8).
The vision afforded Lalibela was ultimately
to create a Holy Land in Ethiopia. This had been previously attempted
to some degree at Aksum. While a highly distinctive creation in
its own right, Lalibela is extensively informed not only by the
topography of the Holy Land but by venerated Aksumite precedents as well
(Heldman, 25). It has been suggested that the impetus for this ambitious
campaign may have been partially a response to the seizure of Jerusalem
by Saladin in 1189, rendering it inaccessible to Christian pilgrims (Garlake,
88).
Lalibela replicates Jerusalem and other holy
sites in concentrated form. It creates what Roderick Grierson has
referred to as “a
mystical topography” that is oriented around the Jordan River, the
site of Christ’s baptism, and features the Mount of Olives, the Tomb
of Adam, and the church of Golgotha” (Munro-Hay, Ethiopia,
192; Heldman, 30). Along
that same Jordan River, known also as the Yordanos, that flows
through the town of Lalibela, the structures of eleven churches
were carved out of the living rock, the sites's volcanic tufa.
These massive stone structures are wondrously original and various
in form and yet consistent in their evocation of Aksumite features.
While no deposits afford the possibility of archaeological dating,
scholars have suggested that—based on their diversity of style,
workmanship, and condition—it is likely that they were executed
over the course of two or three centuries and completed during
Lalibela’s
reign (Garlake, 88–89; Phillipson, Monuments, 133). Phillipson
has noted that extant monuments of this period are exclusively
ecclesiastical and that the mobility of the Zagwe rulers and their
entourage may have led to the construction of few secular structures
in durable materials (Phillipson, Monuments, 128). Ultimately only
Lalibela and Aksum’s
stone monuments survived the devastation of Ahmed Gragn’s jihad during
his occupation of the region between 1527 and 1543 (Garlake, 93) |
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