ETHIOPIAN HISTORICAL SITES

The largest of the Lalibela churches, Bete Medihanialem is one of the five rock churches north of the Jordan River. It is unique in that it has features repeated nowhere else in Lalibela. It is surrounded by rectangular columns and with a further thicket of twenty-eight other columns supporting the roof. Scholars say that Bete Medhanealem is a replica in rock of the original church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum, Tigray.