Lalibela, the rock-hewn churches

Lalibela is a town in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia, and the rock-hewn churches beneath it are among the most remarkable structures anywhere on Earth. They were not built. They were cut: quarried down and inward out of the living rock, so that each church stands free of the ground it came from, with no foundation, no assembly, and no way to correct a mistake, because everything removed is gone for good.

The churches date from the 7th to 13th centuries and are traditionally attributed to the reign of the Zagwe king Gebre Meskel Lalibela, who ruled around 1181 to 1221 and gave the town its name. They were declared a World Heritage Site in 1978.

The layout is the part that changes how you see the place. The arrangement and the names of the major buildings are widely accepted, particularly by local clergy, as a symbolic representation of Jerusalem. This is not a set of churches that happen to sit near each other; it is a city rendered in stone.

Archaeology has revised the story recently. Excavations have produced abundant pottery and faunal remains dating to 900 to 1100, which indicates the site was largely a secular settlement before the king transformed it into a religious centre.

Engineering runs through all of it, and water is the thread: the churches are all associated with water, which fills the wells beside many of them.

To some Christians Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities and a centre of pilgrimage. Ethiopia was among the earliest nations to adopt Christianity, in the first half of the 4th century. Further out lie the monastery of Ashetan Maryam and Yemrehana Krestos Church, possibly eleventh century, built in the Aksumite manner but inside a cave. The dry season, October to March, is the practical time to go.