Close to Degum, the rock-hewn church of Debretsion stands on top of a massif, which forms part of the spectacular Gheralta Mountains of Northern Ethiopia. A Tigray homestead stands on the arid Hawzien Plain hundreds of feet below. Flat-roofed stone houses, which are common throughout Tigray Province, may have been introduced into Ethiopia from Arabia as early as 700 BC. In the fastness of the Gheralta Mountains about thirty rock-hewn churches were built in early Christian times. In all, Tigray _ Ethiopia's northern-most region _ has more than 120 rock-hewn churches.