Debre Damo

Debre Damo is the name of a flat-topped mountain, or amba, and a 6th-century monastery in northern Ethiopia. The mountain is steeply rising plateau of trapezoidal shape, about 1000 by 400 meters in dimension, having a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 2216 meters above sea level, and located west of Adigrat in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the Tigray Region. 
The monastery, accessible only by rope up a sheer cliff, is known for its collection of manuscripts, and having the earliest existing church building in Ethiopia still in its original style. Tradition claims the monastery was founded in the sixth century by Abuna Aregawi. 
==The monastery==
The monastery received its first archeological examination by E. Littman who led a German expedition to northern Ethiopia in the early 20th century. By the time David Buxton saw the ancient church in the mid-1940s, he found it "on the point of collapse";David Buxton, Travels in Ethiopia, second edition (London: Benn, 1957), p. 126 a few years later, the English architect D.H. Matthews assisted in the restoration of the building, which included the rebuilding of one of its wood and stone walls (a characteristic style of Aksumite architecture).David Buxton, The Abyssinians (New York: Praeger, 1970), pp. 97ff Thomas Pakenham, who visited the church in 1955, records a tradition that Debre Damo had also once been a royal prison for heirs to the Emperor of Ethiopia, like the better known Wehni and Amba Geshen.Thomas Pakenham, The Mountains of Rasselas (New York: Reynal & Co., 1959), pp. 79-86 The exterior walls of the church were built of alternating courses of limestone blocks and wood, "fitted with the projecting stumps that Ethiopians call 'monkey heads.'" Once inside, Pakenham was in awe of what he saw:
 
== References ==
Category:History of Ethiopia
Category:Christian monasteries in Ethiopia
Category:Christian monasteries established in the 6th century
Category:Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church buildings
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fr:Monastère de Debré Damo
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ru:Дэбрэ-Дамо