Many other churches were hewn from rock in Ethiopia, outside of Lalibela. This practice was very common in Tigray, where the outside world knew of only a few such churches until the Catholic priest Abba Tewelde Medhin Josief presented a paper to the Third International Conference of Ethiopian Studies in which he announced the existence of over 120 churches, 90 of which were still in use. Despite Dr. Josief's death soon after his presentation, research over the next few years raised the total number of these rock-hewn churches to 153, particularly in the districts Kola Tembien, Degua Tembien, Hawzen and Sa'esa Tsada Amba.