Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia: An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia — John Shaqi
Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia: An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of RhodesiaHall, R. N. (Richard Nicklin)
History
Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia: An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia
Hall, R. N. (Richard Nicklin)
Great Zimbabwe (Extinct city); Zimbabwe -- Antiquities
The secluded valleys, and also the caves in hills, for a distance of
six miles, and in some cases as far as ten miles, from Zimbabwe have
been systematically searched in the hope of discovering the burial
place of the old gold-seekers. The neighbourhood of Zimbabwe contains
several extensive ranges of granite hills each enclosing many secluded
and Sinbad-like valleys and gorges, where natives state white men had
never previously entered. Such spots on the whole of the Beroma Hills
to the east of Zimbabwe, the south end of the Livouri Range to the
west, the Bentberg Range to the south, and several hills in the Nini
district, as well as several parts in the Motelekwe Valley, have been
systematically searched without avail, though there are in certain
of these secluded places traces of walls and artificially placed
upright stones and other signs of human presence which require some
explanation. The siltation of soil from the steep hillsides of many
of these most romantically situated valleys has been very extensive.
These searches could only be carried on after veld fires had swept the
district of the rank grass which here grows to a height of 12 ft. Mr.
Bent and other writers have shown that the old Arabians religiously
preserved their dead, burying them in secluded spots at some
considerable distance from any place of occupation. The writer is not
without hope that these burial-places may yet be found. The population
of Zimbabwe at several different periods must have been immense, and,
judging by the remains found near some of the oldest types of ruins
in other parts of the country where the amount of gold ornaments
buried with each corpse ranged from 1 oz. to 72 oz., the discovery
of such places in the Zimbabwe district would yield important
results, especially as, for many reasons, Zimbabwe undoubtedly appears
to have been the ancient metropolitan capital and the centre of
gold-manufacturing industry of the original and later Arab gold miners,
and the place so far has yielded the richest discoveries of gold in
every form.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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