Ethiopia Lalibela Medhane Alem/Beta Maryam. 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. Beta Medhane Alem, House of the Redeemer of the World (upper right), and Beta Maryam, House of Mary (lower left), both truly monolithic, hewn from one block of stone, in their respective pits.