DABRA DAMO MONASTERY

Ethiopia's oldest monastery is located on a steep-walled amba (plateau) 1 km long and 500 m wide, with a circular view over the Hazemo massif (in Eritrea) and the Adwa mountains. Founded in the ^6th century by Abouna Aregawi, one of the nine Syrian saints who initiated the second wave of Christianization in the kingdom, Dabra Damo became one of the country's greatest centers of Christianity and monasticism. Climbing the 15 m wall is only possible by means of a leather strap pulled from the summit. This link, called a jendé, symbolizes the serpent which, according to legend, lifted Aregawi to the top of the plateau on God's orders. The amba is occupied by a veritable village of small dwellings (home to some 300 monks), water cisterns, two churches and pastures where an exclusively male herd of cattle, donated by pilgrims, roams. The main sanctuary, built by King Gabra Masqal in the ^6th century, is in the Axumite style, made of stone and wood with "monkey heads", and features splendid wooden coffered ceilings carved with geometric, plant and animal motifs. A smaller, more recent church has been built on the eastern slope of the plateau, where the saint retired to live as a hermit, and where, according to tradition, he disappeared from the sight of the living.

This place, which was often the refuge of kings during conflicts (Lebna Dengel, who died here, was buried in the ^16th century), still attracts a multitude of pilgrims on the occasion of his feast day, celebrated on October 24.