churches of the Aksumite empire - 3rd - 4th Century

 

 

              Modern photo of the church of Dabra Dammo. Photo: A.Savin. Creative Commons.

 

 

Like the palaces of Aksum, some of the churches of the Aksumite empire are also built using stones and timber beams. You can see an example of this style of building by visiting the main church of the monastery of Debra Dammo, which is located about 60 kilometres east of Aksum. In this church, timber beams are set at regular intervals in parallel to the line of the wall and are kept in place with shorter perpendicular wooden beams with rounded ends that stick out of the wall. Some locals say that the rounded ends of these beams look like ‘monkey’s heads’.