Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia / An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia

by R. N. Hall

NORTH-WEST ENTRANCE

THIS entrance is on the north-west side of the temple at (606 ft. 6 in.) to (611 ft. 6 in.) inside, and [656 ft.] to [660 ft.] outside. As in the case of North and West Entrances, the foundations of the main wall are carried from side to side of the entrance and from the floor of the passage, and in them the outer steps are built. The east side wall is 4 ft. wide where it starts to curve inwards to form the passage and at 6 ft. above the floor of the entrance. The west side is 7 ft. wide where it starts to round inwards and at 6 ft. above the entrance floor.

Evidently this entrance was not of the importance of either of the other two portals to the temple. No internal passages converge upon it; it is less massive, and its purpose appears to have been limited to serving as a communication with No. 1 Ruins only, as a substantial wall which encloses these ruins runs round to the north-west main wall of the temple between [705 ft.] and [710 ft.], where it joins it at right angles to the main walls. These enclosing walls thus cut off on either side the exterior of the North-West Entrance from the other portions of the exterior of the temple, and in these enclosing walls no signs have so far been discovered of there having been any entrances.

NORTH-WEST ENTRANCE, ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE

ENTRANCE TO PASSAGE, No. 10 ENCLOSURE, ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE

This entrance is built on well-curved lines, but the rounded faces of the two side walls do not exactly face one another, since the outside face of the west side projects some 12 in. further north than that on the east side, the west wall being wider than the east one, though on their inside faces they are flush with each other. There are no buttresses on the outside of this entrance. The summits of the side walls, some 6 ft. above the outside level, are less ruined than those of the other two entrances; the gap between the two summits including the width of the entrance is only 8 ft. 6 in., the broken faces of the upper portions of the walls rising perpendicularly on either side.

North-West Entrance
ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE
N^o. 3 Enclosure

This entrance is 2 ft. 9 in. wide in the centre. The wall on the west side is perfect up to 5 ft. in height, and that on the east side to 6 ft. 6 in. There are two steps on the outer side, and these are formed by the courses in the foundation being carried across the entrance and curved inwards at the centre of the passage.

On either side of the entrance in the interior of the temple there are plumb and angular buttresses of poor construction resting upon soft soil. Each projects 5 ft. 6 in. into No. 3 Enclosure, and each is 1 ft. 9 in. high, the width between their straight faces being 2 ft. 8 in. Each buttress is rounded off on the outer side and joins the main wall, that on the east side being 7 ft. long, and that on the west side 9 ft. 6 in. long.

When Bent arrived at Zimbabwe in 1891 he found this entrance built up to a height of 9 ft. This had then been done some fifty years previously by the Makalanga when the previous Mogabe Chipfuno was only a boy. This walling-up was for the purpose of closing in No. 3 Enclosure, which was used as a cattle kraal. It is highly probable that the Makalanga took the upper portions of the two buttresses which are on either side of the inside of this entrance for building material in so walling it up, for these buttresses, judging by the absence of stone débris and the condition of the faces of the main wall where the buttresses were once built up against it, appear to have been deliberately denuded of their courses for at least some feet of their original height.

Bent removed the walling-up, but left its foundation in the entrance at 2 ft. below which the paved passage and steps were unburied in September, 1902. This foundation of the Makalanga wall was laid across a pile of blocks thrown promiscuously on to the floor of this entrance, and this again rested on soil black with charcoal, decomposed vegetable matter, and bones of buck split open for the marrow, and this débris contained broken articles of Makalanga make, but of superior quality to those made by them to-day.