ahumbleprofessor:One of my art history classes this semester is about African art and architecture.
ahumbleprofessor:One of my art history classes this semester is about African art and architecture. I learned about this building above and it’s so cool that I’m gonna share it here. This is a church called the Bete Gyorgis and was built in somewhere around the early 13th century. It currently resides in Lalibela, Ethiopia. The thing that’s crazy about this structure is that it wasn’t built “from the ground up” as they say, but down into the ground. The ground in this spot is called tufa, which hardens when exposed to the air. So the builders had to carve downward into this tufa with meticulous detail, slowly revealing the structure to the air. That’s insane, isn’t it? Zoom in on it and think about how long it must’ve taken to carve it out. It took so long, indeed, that the workers believed that whenever they slept, angels would descend from heaven to continue working on the church at night. -- source link