The mountain hosts a monastery, accessible only by rope up a sheer cliff, 15 m (49 ft) high, is known for its collection of manuscripts and for having the earliest existing church building in Ethiopia that is still in its original style, and only men can visit it.

[3] A few years later, an English architect, DH Matthews, assisted in the restoration of the building, which included the rebuilding of one of its wood and stone walls (a characteristic style of Aksumite architecture).

[4] Thomas Pakenham, who visited the church in 1955, records a tradition that Debre Dammo had also once been a royal prison for heirs to the Emperor of Ethiopia, like the better-known Wehni and Amba Geshen.

[5] The exterior walls of the church were built of alternating courses of limestone blocks and wood, "fitted with the projecting stumps that Ethiopians call 'monkey heads'".

In its dusty ceiling one could dimly make out a series of wood-carvings – peacocks drinking from a vase, a lion and a monkey, several fabulous animals.