The ruined cities of Mashonaland: Being a record of excavation and exploration in 1891

MASHONALAND
Wooden Platter found in a Cave about 10 Miles from Zimbabwe
THE RUINED CITIES OF MASHONALAND
BEING A RECORD OF EXCAVATION AND EXPLORATION IN 1891
BY J. THEODORE BENT, F.S.A. F.R.G.S. AUTHOR OF ‘THE CYCLADES, OR LIFE AMONGST THE INSULAR GREEKS’ ETC. WITH A CHAPTER ON THE ORIENTATION AND MENSURATION OF THE TEMPLES BY R. M. W. SWAN
NEW EDITION LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16 th STREET 1895 All rights reserved
Since the appearance of the second edition of this book I have received many communications about the Mashonaland ruins, considerable additional work in excavation has been done, and many more ruins have come to light as the country has been opened out. Of this material I have set down the chief points of interest.
Again, the long inscription on this building is in two rows, and runs round a fourth of its circumference; this corresponds to the position of the two rows of chevron pattern which run round a fourth part of the temple at Zimbabwe. Furthermore, one half of the elliptical wall on the side of the inscription is well built and well preserved, whereas that on the opposite side is badly built and partly ruined. This is also the case in the Zimbabwe ruin, where all the care possible has been lavished on the side where the pattern and the round tower are, and the other portion has been either more roughly finished or constructed later by inferior workmen.
From the inscriptions on the building at Marib we learn that it was a temple dedicated to the goddess Almaqah. Professor Müller writes as follows:—
There is absolutely no doubt that the Haram of Bilkis is an old temple in which sacred inscriptions to the deities were set up on stylæ. The elliptically formed wall appears to have been always used in temple buildings; also at Sirwah, the Almaqah temple, which is decidedly very much older than the Haram of Bilkis, was also built in an oval form. Also these temples, as the inscriptions show, were dedicated to Almaqah. Arabian archæologists also identify Bilkis with Almaqah, and, therefore, make the temple of Almaqah into a female apartment (haram).