Lalibela, designated a World Heritage site, is a labyrinthian assembly of Christian partly monolithic sanctuaries, cut from and into the living rock, imitating built-up architecture in the reddish andesitic tufa. About 1200 AD King Lalibela, a ruler of the Zagwe Dynasty, created these scuptured shrines with local stone masons as a New Jerusalem in the Ethiopian highlands. Inside the holy of holies of the Golgotha Church - the Selassie (Trinity) crypt with its three altars, both space and furniture sculpted from one piece of rock -the mystery of Lalibela is persuasive.