“Ascending to Heaven,” a stunning collection of photography by Engineer Esubalew Meaza, is a beautiful and aptly titled book.  “Ascending to [Debre Damo] Heaven” is a wax and gold qinie, a poetic expression composed in the traditional style of Geez poetry.  And indeed, the breathtaking images in the book, together with the clear, succinct text descriptions that accompany them, chart the road to heaven, the path of Ethiopian Christianity.  They also bring ancient Ethiopia to life.

It is pure pleasure to contemplate these pictures of the history makers, heroes or saints, who nurtured Christianity in Ethiopia and the churches they built.  We are proud of our ancestors for making us people of history; we are proud of our historians for recording this history in parchments and stones; we are proud of our artists for making our history eternally vivid; and we are grateful to Engineer Esubalew Meaza for bringing ancient Ethiopia to our homes in this way.  Blessed are his cameras for showing us these faces of our history.