That this and the numerous other conical towers still standing amid the crumbling ruins of Rhodesia are all cast in a Semitic mould will be at once seen by comparing them with the conical tower of a temple, figured on a medallion found at Byblos in Phœnicia and here reproduced (Fig. 1.). The comparison may also be extended to the two embossed cylinders—one from Great Zimbabwe, the other from the Temple of Paphos, in Cyprus, here also reproduced (Figs. 3 and 4) from Bent’s _Ruined Cities_, pp. 170, 171. These two objects, so strikingly similar in general design, reminded Bent of Herodian’s description of the sacred cone in the great Phœnician Temple of the Sun at Emessa, in Syria, which was adorned with certain “knobs or protuberances,” a pattern supposed by him to represent the sun, and common in phallic decorations, such as are constantly turning up with every shovelful of débris removed from the Zimbabwe Temple Enclosures. But although thousands of stones have been washed and carefully examined for inscriptions, none have so far been discovered. As the inscription which stood originally above the gateway of Great Zimbabwe, as reported by the Arabs to the Portuguese pioneers early in the sixteenth century,[9] has since disappeared, there are no known written documents connecting these monuments with South Arabia or Phœnicia, except a few scratches on the rim of an earthenware vessel figured by Bent and by him supposed possibly to be of Himyaritic type.[10] As, on the other hand, South Arabia is covered with Himyaritic rock inscriptions, some of considerable length and hitherto reputed to be of great age, their absence from Rhodesia has naturally caused surprise. This negative argument has even by some of my critics been allowed to outweigh the overwhelming positive evidence derived from the monuments themselves, from the hundreds of old gold-workings already described or recorded, from the multitude of objects—phalli, birds, conic towers—which have been found in the ruins, and are, beyond all doubt, intimately associated with Semitic religious observances. But I think it may now be shown that this “negative argument” is no proof at all of non-Semitic origins, but, on the contrary, affords strong indirect evidence of the great antiquity of these Semitic remains in Rhodesia.