ABSTRACT
Almeida recounts how the Empress Helen, wife of Ba’eda Maryam and Regent during the minority of Lebna Dengel, had been a great benefactor of churches. One in particular she built with such generosity that it was the finest church that had ever been seen in the country. ‘She sent for the workmen from Egypt; this could not have been done had they not been given very large payments and a great reward, for the work shows that they were masters of their craft. She chose a very suitable site for the church in the heart of Gojam in a district called Nebessee, which is washed by the Nile; as it bends round, the territories of Begameder, Amahara and Holeca come to drink its water on the other side of the stream. It is very fertile country and in the middle is a hillock rising up like a hummock to a height of two or three lances from the ground, and less than a quarter of a league round. Today it is all clothed and peopled by so many cedars and wild olives or zambitgeiros1 that they cover it entirely and number over two thousand. They appear to have been planted there when the building of the church began, be cause it is the custom in Ethiopia always to surround churches with these tall groves of trees. In the centre of this hill, which has a very level space on top, they built an enclosure wall of stone and mud, square in shape, each side of the wall being probably two hundred fathoms long. The wall had a width of eight spans and a height of over twenty and the mud was so strong that after more than a hundred and thirty years I saw much of one side standing so safe and strong that a strong force of men with pickaxes was needed to demolish it.
