This area is only partially excavated, it being covered with old native-built walls which cross over bone and ash débris, old native huts, an iron furnace, and rich black mould in which the vegetable matter was still undecayed. Experimental holes and boring-rods showed that some very old foundations ran below the soil upon which the later and poorer walls are built. However, a key has now been found which will enable further excavations to be made within this area without injury to the upper walls. SUMMIT OF MAIN EAST WALL Along the summit of the east main wall, and only over the chevron pattern which faces east, have recently been discovered the traces of foundations of small circular towers, both on the inner and outer edges of the wall. These correspond in measurement and relative position to the small conical towers on the west wall of the Western Temple at the Acropolis Ruins, which is decorated with monoliths. Some of the best-known surveyors and practical builders in Rhodesia are prepared to certify as to the traces of these foundations. This is entirely a new discovery, as is also the fact that at one time the summit of the wall, only over the chevron pattern, bore beautifully rounded soapstone monoliths, the bases being found displaced under the ruck of loose blocks which runs along the centre of the summit of this part of the main wall. Some carved splinters of these monoliths were found at the bases of the wall. A collection of these “finds” has been sent to the Salisbury Museum. PROBABLE AGES OF THE WALLS OF THE ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE All the walls of the Elliptical Temple are not ancient; that is, not ancient in the sense applying to the suggested Sabæo-Arabian occupation of Rhodesia and also to that of the Solomonic gold period. The evidences pointing to this conclusion, and now for the first time available, are so obvious and general, and the ocular demonstration so positive, that one of the many popular myths concerning Great Zimbabwe must, even at the risk of committing a vandalism on cherished romantic theories and beliefs, go by the board. The writer prefers that the ruins should tell their own story, and this can now be read in the walls, in the débris heaps, and in the relics and their associated “finds” and locations. The oldest walls of the temple for which great antiquity may be claimed are—the main east wall from north to south, the Conical Tower, the Platform, portions of the inner wall of the Parallel Passage (reconstructions are present here), and some adjoining walls, and some buried walls and foundations, and possibly some other walls on the south side, concerning which some doubt exists, as also the west wall of the West Passage, a well-built structure which once was extended at either extremity. As to the question of obviously much later walls, this is involved in the following section of this preface. WEST WALL CONTROVERSY