The BBC recently published an article about Lalibela and its churches in Ethiopia, and I thought about reblogging the article I wrote about it many years ago. The article I wrote, “Lalibela, Ethiopian churches carved in the stone,” was one of the first posts on my blog. It talked about the bees being a central part of Lalibela’s churches; this article also helps to see the evolution of the blog, from the very beginning to now. It is sweet to realize that some of the stories on this blog caught our eyes before they caught those of the BBC: Ethiopia’s miraculous underground churches. Cheers!
Enjoy!
When I was younger, there was a cartoon on television in which they always mentioned the churches of Lalibela, and somehow I used to think that it was not actually real,… you know like these made-up places in cartoons! Isn’t it interesting that the name Lalibela always made me think of honey bees (abeille in french)… Imagine my surprise when I found out that it is said that at birth a swarm of bees descended on the baby king’s head, and his Mother named him Lalibela, meaning “the bees have recognized him as king!”
Carved straight from red volcanic stone, and actually from a single stone, Lalibela is the place of pilgrimage of thousands of christians every year, and is one of Ethiopia’s holiest places. It was intended to be the New Jerusalem, in response to the capture of Jerusalem by Muslims. The architecture of Lalibela was revealed…
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