Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, or GREAT ZIMBABWE, a notable ruin in Mashonaland, in 20° 16' 30" S. lat. and 31° 10' 10" E. long., and 3300 feet above sea-level. It is the principal of a series of similar remains along the west side of the Sabi River, and consists of a large elliptical building (280 feet long, with walls 35 feet high and 16 feet thick) on a gentle rise, with buildings extending into the valley, and an immensely strong labyrinthine fortress on the opposite hill, 400 feet above. The older buildings are beautiful examples of dry masonry. There are a considerable number of little images of the solar disc; whilst the two conical towers in the sacred enclosure on the lower hill, as well as the chevron ornamentation there, and various objects found in the citadel point to phallic forms of worship. The ruins evidently formed a garrison for the protection of a gold-producing race in remote antiquity, of whose work many traces have been found—a smelting-furnace made of hard cement, clay crucibles with little specks of gold adhering, an ingot mould of soapstone, burnishers, crushers, carved soapstone birds, &c. Mr Theodore Bent, who explored the ruins in 1891, assigns this enterprise to pre-Mohammedan Arabians (with possibly Phœnician influences), as both the objects of art and the special cult indicated are utterly foreign to the African races. K. Manch would identify the region with the Ophir (q.v.) of Solomon's time. See Bent's Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1892), and Manch's Reisen (Gotha, 1877).