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 same principle of measurement applies to the curves which determine
the shape of the two towers themselves, and this explains why it is
that the little tower tapers much more rapidly towards the top than
does the great one. If we describe a circular curve with its centre on
the same level as the base of the great tower and its radius equal to
twice 17·17 x 3·14 on 107⅘ feet, we find that it exactly fits the
outline of the great tower as it is shown in our photographs. Also, a
curve described in a similar way but with a radius equal to twice the
diameter of the little tower multiplied by 3·14 (5·45 × 3·14 × 2 =
34·34 feet) will correspond to the outline of that tower.
The towers when built were doubtless made complete in their
mathematical form and were carried up to a point as we see in a coin of
Byblos, where we have a similar tower represented with curved outlines.
Their heights as determined by these curves would be 42·3 and 13·5 feet
respectively, and these numbers also bear the same relation to each
other that the circumference of a circle does to its diameter.
We have no explanation to give of the position of the little tower
relatively to the great one, but there probably was some meaning in it
which might appear had we a plan of the original walls around the
towers. It is very doubtful that these walls, which now mark off the
sacred enclosure, are of the same period as the towers. They are shaded
darkly in our plan because they are fairly well built; but although
they are better built than most of the secondary walls, yet they are
not equal in point of execution to the great outer wall and the towers,
and their lines, too, are not so regular as those of the original walls
generally are. It seems probable that they are rough copies of some old
walls which had fallen, and are wanting in some of the essential
features of their originals. We can only say that the centre of one
tower is distant 17·17 feet from the centre of the other, within a
limit of error of two inches.
The angular height of both the towers measured from the centres of the
curves which determine their forms is the same—namely 23° 1′.
None of the angular values of the arcs seem to have been of any special
significance, except perhaps the angle at the altar in the great
temple, which is subtended by the arc AK. The value of this angle is
about 57°, and is equal to our modern unit of the circular measure of
an angle, which is the angle at the centre of any circle that is
subtended by an arc equal to the radius. It is hardly likely that it
can have had this meaning to the builders of the temple, and the
probable cause of the coincidence is that at A they meant to halve the
angular distance between K and the doorway. Besides, the sun’s rays,
when it rises at the summer solstice, do not fall directly on the part
of the wall beyond A, and this probably had some connection with their
reason for changing the radius of the arc at this point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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