The ruined cities of Mashonaland: Being a record of excavation and exploration in 1891Bent, J. Theodore (James Theodore)
History
The ruined cities of Mashonaland: Being a record of excavation and exploration in 1891
Bent, J. Theodore (James Theodore)
Extinct cities -- Zimbabwe -- Mashonaland; Great Zimbabwe (Extinct city)
The south-western end of this line of ruins was obviously a temple; it
has been lately used as a cattle pen by the chief, but the soil has not
been disturbed. On removing the soil we came across a level cement
floor, supported on an elaborate system of under-walls filled up with
large stones on which the cement floor rested, as was the case in the
raised platform in the circular temple below. In the centre stood the
altar, an angular structure of small granite blocks, which fell to
pieces a short time after exposure to the air; when we removed the soil
which had buried this altar, around it we found the phalli, the birds
or soapstone pillars, and fragments of soapstone bowls, which I shall
subsequently describe more in detail.
On a portion of the wall outside, as in the circular building below,
ran a pattern—a dentelle pattern formed by placing the stones edgeways,
with exactly the same aspect as the pattern below. To the north of the
temple a steep ascent, constructed on supporting walls, led through the
granite boulders to a hollow space walled in on one side, and protected
by the rocks on the other three; a rounded buttress guarded the
entrance, and in the centre stood two tall monoliths of slate firmly
fixed into the cement floor and the stones beneath; from this spot a
slope led up to the top of the rock, on which a terrace had been
constructed overlooking the temple and facing the rising sun. Another
gully between two boulders, only wide enough for one man to pass at a
time, led out of the temple to the side where the modern Kaffir village
is. This had also been anciently strongly protected.
The temple was approached from the lower ridge above the precipice by a
narrow passage between two high walls gently ascending to a flight of
steps. This passage ended in a most curious architectural
feature—namely, steps were formed leading to the temple on the one
side, and apparently only for ornamentation on the other, by continuing
the rounded courses of the outer wall so that they produced the effect
of two miniature theatres facing one another, and proving almost more
than any other point amongst the ruins the high pitch to which the
ancient builders had brought their knowledge of keeping even courses in
dry building. This point in the architecture proves the especial
attention paid by the constructors to curves, and these curves would
seem to have been constructed on the same principle as the curves in
the large circular building which Mr. Swan will discuss in Chapter V.
Adjoining the temple to the north is another semicircular building, the
inner wall of which has six vertical rows, six feet high, let into the
construction, as if for beams, with a ledge on the top, as if for a
roof. We were unable to form any opinion as to the use of this chamber,
and though we emptied it of soil we found nothing in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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