Why Is King Lalibela Important

Throughout Time, many people have wanted to put their mark on the world whether it be an idea, a fact, or even an item. Since the dawn of time kings, emperors and rulers of civilizations have also left their mark to show how much power their kingdom had obtained. King Lalibela (1162-1221) was no exception to this rule and it will be stated what he built and who built it, what civilization and time period this piece of art represents, why and how it was created and finally how his artifact reflects the values of King Lalibela’s civilization.
As stated before, King Lalibela left his mark to forever be in the worlds history books. During Lalibela’s rule, he had constructed a church to that was to be carved out of the earth from the rock around

Why was a certain artifact built? What purpose did it serve during its completion? Was it a status symbol constructed by a power-hungry king or was it a means to bring a civilization together in the form of thought? Like mentioned before, there are not many written texted that have been found that were written during the Zagwe kingdom, so with that knowledge, most of the accounts as to why the churches were built were based on oral accounts and legends. One such legend in particular states that King Lalibela was exiled to Jerusalem and later returned after 25 years (Connery, para.16). When King Lalibela returned he did so with the Knights Templar which assisted him in building the churches (Connery, para. 16). Another legend as to why the churches were built also came from King Lalibela’s involvement with Jerusalem and the Christian faith. The legend goes on to state that King Lalibela was requested by God to build a copy of Jerusalem and he was then assisted by angles. Either way, these churches served as a beacon to Christians in an world were Islam was taking over. Now that the topic of dating the churches has been discussed, we can further expand into why they were constructed. With the reason why the churches were built stated, one begins to wonder how a person would cut and forge rock into what is normally built by wood and other resources. Archeologist and other scientists have had quite the difficult time trying to learn the secrets of the Churches of Lalibela due to the fact it is still an active church; however, a recent excavation has revealed that cutting the rock around Lalibela was possible due to the geology of its area. Being mostly volcanic and other friable material, builders used iron tools and possible already existing holes in order to accomplish building such a feat. (Finneran,425). In short, determining the how and why the Churches of Lalibela has been tedious to define via