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Debre Dammo

Monastery in Tigray Region, Ethiopia

Summary

Monastery in Tigray Region, Ethiopia

Field	Value
name	Debre Dammo
native_name	ደብረ ዳሞ
native_name_lang	ti
other_name	Debre Damo, Dabra Dāmmo, Däbrä Dammo
settlement_type	Mountain and Monastery
image_skyline	ET Tigray asv2018-01 img14 Debre Damo Monastery.jpg
subdivision_type	Country
subdivision_name	Ethiopia
subdivision_type1	Region
subdivision_name1	Tigray
subdivision_type2	Zone
subdivision_name2	Maekelay Zone
pushpin_map	Ethiopia
pushpin_label_position	bottom
pushpin_map_caption	Location within Ethiopia
coordinates
elevation_m	2,216

Debre Dammo (), Däbrä Dammo (with the geminated -mm-) in Tigrinya or Däbrä Damo in later Amharic appellations (also spelled Debre Damo, Dabra Dāmmo or Däbrä Dammo), is the name of a flat-topped mountain, or amba, and a 6th-century monastery in Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The mountain is a steeply rising plateau of trapezoidal shape, about 1000 by in dimension. It sits at an elevation of 2216 m above sea level. It is north of Bizet and northwest of Adigrat in Central Zone, Tigray, close to the border with Eritrea.

The mountain hosts a monastery, accessible only by rope up a sheer cliff, 15 m high, is known for its collection of manuscripts and for having the earliest existing church building in Ethiopia that is still in its original style, and only men can visit it. Tradition claims that the monastery was founded in the 6th century by Abuna Aregawi.

Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, claims that several churches had been burned during Tigray War, including Debre Damo. These claims have not been independently verified. He did not state who was responsible.

Monastery

The monastery received its first archeological examination by E. Litton, who led a German expedition to northern Ethiopia in the early 20th century. By the time that David Buxton saw the ancient church in the mid-1940s, he found it "on the point of collapse". A few years later, an English architect, DH 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).

Thomas Pakenham, who visited the church in 1955, records a tradition that Debre Dammo had also once been a royal prison for heirs to the Emperor of Ethiopia, like the better-known Wehni and Amba Geshen. 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:

Rumours of Destruction

On 7 May 2021 a YouTube video was published by Denis Wadley in which the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, claimed that several churches had been burned during Tigray War. The claims included Debre Damo, in which he stated that a monk was killed. He did not specify who was responsible. Visitors to the monastery in early 2025 refute the claims; the monastery and the compound are intact.

File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img01 Debre Damo surroundings.jpg|Debre Dammo amba File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img05 Debre Damo surroundings.jpg|The way up to the monastery File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img12 Debre Damo Monastery.jpg|The main church of Debre Dammo File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img18 Debre Damo Monastery.jpg|Interior of the main church File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img27 Debre Damo Monastery.jpg|Debre Dammo Monastery, seen from a different angle. File:ET Tigray asv2018-01 img25 Debre Damo Monastery.jpg|Bell tower

References

Bausi, Alessandro. (2020-11-24). ""Däbrä Dammo", Not "Däbrä Damo"". Géolinguistique.
David Buxton, ''Travels in Ethiopia'', second edition (London: Benn, 1957), p. 126
David Buxton, ''The Abyssinians'' (New York: Praeger, 1970), pp. 97ff
Thomas Pakenham, ''The Mountains of Rasselas'' (New York: Reynal & Co., 1959), pp. 79-86
Pakenham, p. 85
"Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarch Genocide Declaration 2021 April 26".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

christian-monasteries-established-in-the-6th-century ethiopian-orthodox-tewahedo-monasteries adigrat cliff-dwellings ambas-in-ethiopia 6th-century-establishments-in-ethiopia monasteries-used-as-prisons ethiopian-orthodox-tewahedo-church-buildings-in-ethiopia

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