 So this year I will conduct a one-year research project Troglopi, under the supervision of Marie-Laure de Ra. This project will start in October. It is founded by DIMMAP and INR etio Chris Process. This project is being carried out in partnership with three research teams and one private company. The aim of this project is to better understand the Christian medieval societies in the northern part of Ethiopia, the region of Tigray. Because most of the writing sources are lost, Rockune churches have first-order archival material for assessing the social-economic status of the Christian rural communities active in the area. So as you can see here, this is the area where we will start the project and the main city is Aouzu. The Ethiopian Rockune churches were mostly studied by art historians in the 17th and 80s. Researchers published inventories of churches and some general geological considerations were made. It is in 2010 that a French team of archaeologists and historians proposed some reflections on the occupation phases of the famous site of Lalibella for the first time. This team, supervised by Marie-Laure de Ra, will publish its results this winter. For the Tigray region, another French team led by Clair-Bos Tiesé and Sigrid Mirabeau is focusing on one site, Corco. They are studying frescoes, geology, and conservation of the two churches of Corco. This is the main churches. Marianne Corco. As you can see, it's on the top of the imba. The imba is a hill. The region of Tigray is located in the northern part of Ethiopia, I said, and not far from Eritrea. The region has two seasons, one raining season in July and August, and one dry season. The climate is desertic. Inhabitants have not extensive serer cultivation. The geology could explain the lifestyle of its inhabitants and the choices to carve their warships in the rock. The subsoil, dated from Precombrian period and formed by Gnes, Slate, and Mycashist, Ordovician and Jurassic sandstones cover the first stage. It is inside these sandstones that the Rockune churches are mostly carved. So, yes. This is sandstone, Ordovician sandstone, here. So, as you see, you have a lot of places where you can find sandstone here in Haosen and another area close to Hadsby. As you can see, the region of Tigray has a rich stone. During the antiquity, the Empire of Aksum developed trade connections with Roman Empire and Sub-Arabic communities. In the 4th century, the king of Aksum became Christian. Christian communities are monophysites. They followed Coptic rules. On several occasions, during the medieval times, Christian kingdoms struggle against Caliph's armies because some Muslim communities have settled further down. So, the Muslim communities are here and here, in Green. Not far from the Christian kingdom, some pagan communities continue to build megaliths. The famous one is the Shei culture. Here. That is why to build and to carve churches is one of the most important acts for the king. By this, the king ensures his power and marks his territories. A huge architecture change seems to happen before the middle of the 17th century. From a rectangular plane, the churches become round. With this change, archaeologists and art historians can presume that the basilical plane is reserved for the medieval periods. To conduct the Trugla Tipe project, the team will mainly focus on two sites, the site of Degum and of Mariam-Yerifada. These two sites face each other. Degum is carved into a plane and the Mariam-Yerifada church is carved on the top of the hill. The church of Degum is the main monument we choose for the project. It is a monument of the valley. It was carved inside a rocky protubule. It was well-studied on several occasions, especially by Claude Le Page in the 17th century, who devotes two full articles to it. He described each monument and architectural elements through planes and cross-stations. The site has three rock monuments, an hypogean tomb and a baptistery carved on the top of the hill. Degum A is located around 30 meters to the main building church, where Degum B and C are carved. The building of the main church has been built during the modern time and probably at the beginning of the 20th century. As you can see on the planes, Degum A and B seem to have the same shape. They open by a vestibule, then a rectangular room with pilaster follows. The last part is three-parted, with a window opened on the east wall of the central room, called the Baldenkamp Room. Degum C has two rectangular chambers and a deep alcove without soil, which is overhanging the entrance of the tomb. This is the room without soil, the entrance of the tombs and the tombs. The tomb is rich thanks to a stair and astralopulia. Because of the organization of the site, Claude Lepage proposed to identify Degum C and A as funeral churches. Some carved decorations could be closed to date the site, square pillar, three-degrees capitals, door imitating wood door jamb, inset and re-entrant facade. According to Claude Lepage, these decoration features are a copy of the Aksumid style. Wood and stone are the traditional Aksumite material used to build warships, temples or church, or elite buildings. However, these imitations of Aksumite architecture only lead us to suppose that the site was carved between the 10th and the 14th century. The localization of the site on a plain is remarkable. Indeed, most of the Rockune churches in the Tigray region are located on the top of the hill. Three churches only seem to carve into an outcrop. They are called, as I said, a gliss de valet and opposed to a gliss de montagne. This type of church was identified as a funeral church and is still considered as the oldest example of the Rockune church in the Tigray. Mariamier Refada is known by several scholars, but it is not published yet. That is why I cannot show you a plan of the church. The little church is carved in the sandstone on the top of the imba. As you can see, the entrance of the church is destroyed and rebuilt with concrete. We don't know when this restoration was made. The church has an artex, a rectangular nave which is divided into three by two ranges of square pillars. The eastern part is the Magdash, the holy of holies where altars belong. One room is still being dug to north of the church. Close to the monastery, a holy spring is renewed for its curative qualities. The decoration is cut carelessly than they go. We recognize the square pillar and the patterns of one square inscribed inside a bigger one. Two other motifs are characteristic, the so-called axumite frie which is a copy of wood decoration and the capital with a tray lying on the small cushion. This decoration pattern and the basilical plane are indication to qualify the church as medieval. Two distinctive features need to be noticed. The church has two entrances and the artex is carved inside a huge fort. Nowadays, the church is partial, but it seems that before it was only a catolicon of the monastery. After this general accession, let's focus now on the project, Troglopie. Troglopie has three directions of research. Geology, Traceology and Ethnography which will help us to answer three questions. Where the church is carved? What are the techniques used to make them? Who took the part in the building process? Geology is an important point to understand the techniques of carving process and churches of stone cutters. Last year, I gave the example of Rockune church in Cappadocia, Guilhemier 4B. Inclusion stopped the building process of the church and the master plane has to be changed. The church became a small chapel with a basilical plane instead of a big church with a Troglopie plane because of the geology. It will be conducted by a team of the University of Orsay, Geoops. They will perform pathological and structural analysis to understand how the stone could be reacted to the tool. Because the two churches are not carved inside the same eye, we will verify if the nature of the sandstone is the same. Traceology can be seen as a kind of building archeology but instead to observe stones. We analyze tool marks. This technique helps to study the carving process and to establish a relative chronology, define occupation sizes, etc. Basically, I will try to see if the techniques used in Lali Bela is also applied in the region of Tigray. In Lali Bela, workers were starting the carving process by a window, locating on the top of the wall. According to Luke Stevens, I would say this technique because these kinds of windows are not decorated. After being entranced into the rock, they realize a room and begin the carving process. This technique is used for a church with an eye roof. But in the case of Miami-Refada and the groom, it seems that they choose another technique to start the carving process. With the help of Ije Kav, the private company I will also try to propose a new technique to read tools marks using a 3D laser scanner. This technique will show the layers of the tool marks. Ethnography has an important part in this project because the particularities of Ethiopia are churches are still used and monks know legendary of construction. Some stone workers continue to carve churches with traditional techniques. I mean without mechanics and machines. This direction will be managed by Alai Azba University of Adibrat Erick Guntier National Museum and you. Several interviews of craftsmen were conducted in 2010 by Michael Jeffers from Toronto University. In addition to these kinds of interviews we want to meet some querymen who extract same story. They can also have relevant information about carving process and techniques. Trogloty is a multi-disciplinary project where archaeology will meet geology and ethnography. It involves three main institutions CNRS, National Museum of Natural History USA University and EJCAV. Above the specific questions from each discipline Trogloty raises two main subjects. Transmission and no transmission of uning knowledge where this practice came from why medieval Ethiopians choose to shape the rock and the second one is precisionization of Ethiopia by studying several societies through their activities. In the future we hope to continue this research in Ethiopia and enlarge our scope of other regions like Valacan or to other civilization like pagan civilization who lived in the same time for that Christian community. Thank you.