David Phillipson's archaeological study of Ethiopia's ancient churches, the most detailed modern treatment of Lalibela's building history, complicates the traditional single reign account. His evidence points toward a Zagwe dynasty whose rise and building programs may extend across a longer span than the twelfth to thirteenth century window Ethiopian hagiography assigns to King Lalibela alone, suggesting the complex as it stands may represent contributions from more than one royal building campaign rather than one king's twenty four year effort.
Ethiopian tradition holds firmly to the single king narrative, recorded in Lalibela's hagiography and reinforced by centuries of liturgical memory that treats the site as this one ruler's personal act of devotion. This atlas records both the traditional attribution and the archaeological reassessment rather than choosing between them, consistent with how it treats other cases where a living religious tradition's own historical memory and modern archaeological method reach different conclusions about the same monument.
Whichever building history is correct, the achievement itself is undisputed: an entire complex of churches, complete with windows, columns, and carved relief, excavated downward from solid rock rather than assembled from quarried stone, in a location remote enough that its construction still resists easy technical explanation and continues to draw both pilgrims and researchers to the same highland site.