Debre Dammo (), Däbrä Dammo (with the geminated -mm-) in Tigrinya or Däbrä Damo in later Amharic appellations (also spelled Debre Damo, Dabra DÃÂmmo or Däbrä Dammo), is the name of a flat-topped mountain, or amba, and a 6th-century monastery in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The mountain is a steeply rising plateau of trapezoidal shape, about in size. It sits at an elevation of above sea level. It is north of Bizet and northwest of Adigrat in the Central Zone, Tigray, close to the border with Eritrea.
The mountain hosts a monastery, accessible only by rope up a sheer cliff high, which is known for its collection of manuscripts and for having the earliest existing church building in Ethiopia that is still in its original style. Only men can visit the monastery. Tradition claims that it was founded in the 6th century by Abuna Aregawi.
Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, has claimed that several churches were burned during the Tigray War, including Debre Damo. These claims have not been independently verified. He did not state who was responsible.
The monastery received its first archeological examination by E. Litton, who led a German expedition to northern Ethiopia in the early 20th century. By the time that David Buxton saw the ancient church in the mid-1940s, he found it "on the point of collapse". 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).
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. 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'". Once inside, Pakenham was in awe of what he saw:
On 7 May 2021 a YouTube video was published by Denis Wadley in which the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, claimed that several churches had been burned during Tigray War. The claims included Debre Damo, in which he stated that a monk was killed. He did not specify who was responsible. Visitors to the monastery in early 2025 refute the claims; the monastery and the compound are intact.