According to the Web site Selamta.net, churches in and near Lalibela fall into one of the three categories:

"1. Built-up cave churches, which are ordinary structures inside a natural cave. . . .

2. Rock-hewn cave churches, which are cut inwards from a more or less vertical cliff face sometimes using and widening an existing natural cave (Abba Libanos in Lalibela).

3. Rock-hewn monolithic churches, which imitate a built- up structure but are cut in one piece from the rock and separated from it all round by a trench. Most churches of this type are found in or near Lalibela (Bet Medhane Alem. Bet Maryam. Bet Giorgis, and others)."

www.selamta.net/lalibela.htm

The church at the Monastery of Na’akuto La’ab falls into the first category: it is a built-up cave church, an ordinary structure inside a natural cave (if anything about monasteries in Ethiopia can be said to be ordinary.) You can see the roof of the cave in the upper right corner of the photo.

At first glance, a visitor might mistake the blocks for terra cotta bricks. I believe they are volcanic rock quarried from a source quite similar to the matrix from which the famous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were fashioned.

As I stated in a description a few photos ago, a Canadian blogger has provided a better account for the structural chronology at the Monastery of Na’akuto La’ab than I have been able to find elsewhere.

In her blog, "Realmud Garden," the blogger wrote:

"[The Monastery] was built on the site of what was probably an older shrine by Lalibela's successor, King Na'akuto La'ab (13th century). The relatively modern inner red-brick building was added by the Empress Zewditu (20th century)."

realmudgarden.blogspot.com/2007/06/naakuto-laab.html

The only quibble I have with the blogger is her reference to the building materials as "red bricks," when they are most likely blocks of volcanic stone. Given how similar in color the stone blocks are to red brick, the discrepancy is understandable. Also, perhaps there is a part of the monastery built of brick that I didn't see or have forgotten.

However, if the blogger is correct, this structure dates to the first third of the 20th century, during the Empress Zewditu's reign.

I haven't been able to find information about the monastery that King Lalibela's nephew and successor Na’akuto La’ab is said to have built on this site in the 13th century. Given that the churches King Lalibela constructed in Lalibela were strongly influenced by Axumite architectural design principles established many centuries earlier, one would have expected Na’akuto La’ab to have followed suit when he built a monastery at this site.

However, the church Empress Zewditu built shows not the slightest trace of Axumite design. It is a simple yet elegant building with slight neo-classical influences in the pilasters on either side of the door, the alternating courses of wide and narrow blocks protruding slightly from the facade, and the uncomplicated molding at the top of the building.