The actual approaches to the sacred enclosure are most carefully defended with buttresses on either side, into which a form of portcullis has been fixed, with two grooves, one running down each side, presumably originally intended to receive a wooden door; but at a later period all these entrances have been [[112]]carefully walled up, for what purpose it is difficult to say. It naturally occurred to us that this had been done at a time of danger for protection, but the neatness with which the blocking-up walls are executed is against this theory.
At point V on the plan there is a remarkable instance of the two periods of building. Here, in front of the sacred enclosure, the wall was decorated with courses of black slate in the older and better wall, whereas they are omitted in the inferior continuation.
At point E there is a raised platform immediately in front of the large round tower, covered with a flooring of thick cement, supported by large stones loosely packed together, into which a monolith had been stuck. This platform was connected with the sacred enclosure by a flight of cement steps, and was presumably used for religious purposes.
LARGE ROUND TOWER IN CIRCULAR RUIN. ZIMBABWE
In dealing with the two remarkable round towers which stood in the sacred enclosure, one cannot lay too much stress on the symmetry of the courses and the accuracy with which they have been built. They stand in the centre of the sacred enclosure, which was floored with cement. By digging to their foundations we were able to get very accurate measurements of them, and found that the circumference of the smaller one corresponds exactly to the diameter of the big one, and the diameter of the big one is apparently equal to half its original height, and its circumference again is equal to the diameter of the round building on the Lundi River. The battering of [[115]]the big tower is carried out with mathematical accuracy, the slope of the curve being perfectly regular, and is produced by placing the superincumbent stones in a slightly receding position, so that with the aid of a monkey rope we were able to climb to the top. A few courses below the summit, which would seem to be very much in its original condition except on the south side, where Herr Mauch confesses to have pulled down the stones of several courses, runs a dentelle pattern, marked D on the plan, formed by placing the stones of one course edgeways. This pattern is the same as the lower one given in the illustration of Matindela ruins, p. [137]; but unfortunately, owing to the demolition of the upper courses, it is impossible to define its extent. The tower would seem to have been thirty-five feet in height, and the summit to have been a level of about four feet in diameter. By digging below this tower, and pulling out stones from the sides, which we carefully replaced, we demonstrated to our satisfaction that it was solid. It was built on nothing but the soil of the place, and was erected over nothing; the foundations go down for one foot below the floor of cement which covered the enclosure, and it has been preserved to us simply by its solidity, its long through stones, and the way in which the stones have supported one another. We investigated the smaller tower very thoroughly, and found it also solid.
The religious purport of these towers would seem to be conclusively proved by the numerous finds we [[116]]made in other parts of the ruins of a phallic nature (vide [Chap. VI].), and I think a quotation from Montfaucon’s ‘L’Antiquité Expliquée’ will give us the keynote of the worship. ‘The ancients assure us that all the Arabians worshipped a tower, which they called El Acara or Alquetila, which was built by their patriarch, Ishmael.’ ‘Maximus of Tyre says they honoured as a great god a great cut stone; this is apparently the same stone resembling Venus, according to Euthymius Zygabenus. When the Saracens were converted to Christianity they were obliged to anathematise this stone, which formerly they worshipped.’ This tower doubtless corresponded to the sacred tower of the Midianites, called Penuel, or the ‘Face of God,’ which Gideon destroyed (Judges viii. 7). Allusions to these towers are constant in the Bible, and the Arabian historian El Masoudi further tells us that this stone or tower was eight cubits high, and was placed in an angle of the temple, which had no roof. Turning to Phœnician temple construction, we have a good parallel to the ruins of the Great Zimbabwe at Byblos; as depicted on the coins, the tower or sacred cone is set up within the temple precincts and shut off in an enclosure (vide illustration, p. [150]). Similar work is also found in the round temples of the Cabiri, at Hadjar Kem in Malta, and the construction of these buildings bears a remarkable resemblance to that of those at Zimbabwe, and the round towers, or nuraghs, found in Sardinia may possibly be of similar significance. MM. Perrot [[117]]and Chipiez, in their ‘History of Art in Sardinia,’ speak of these nuraghs as forts or temples, around which the primitive inhabitants of the island once lived. They are ‘truncated cones, built with stone blocks of different sizes, narrowing to the top. The stones are unhewn as a rule and laid on without mortar.’ Here too we have a parallel for our monoliths, menhirs of unhewn stone, and also for the phalli, specimens of which are found carved on stone (p. [57], figs. 49 and 50), and here too the intricate plan of the fortresses suggests at once a parallel to those at Zimbabwe; hence it would appear that the same influence was at work in Sardinia as in South Africa. In Lucian’s ‘De Syriâ Deâ,’ which we shall have occasion again to quote when discussing our finds in [Chapter VI]., we find a description of a temple at Hierapolis, in Mesopotamia, in the propylæa of which, he tells us (§ 16), ‘there stood two very large phalli, about thirty cubits high.’ Our tower at Zimbabwe stood apparently twenty cubits high and ten in diameter. He further says (§ 29), ‘These phalli are solid, for when a priest had to ascend he had to put a rope round himself and the phallus and walk up.’
Herr Mauch, in his account of Zimbabwe, alludes to a sacrifice which took place here amongst the natives in his day (1871). This ceremony seems to correspond very closely to the sacrifice celebrated elsewhere in this country to the spirits of their ancestors. It is pretty evident that another tribe of Kaffirs dwelt near Zimbabwe at that time, who [[118]]looked upon the circular building as sacred; whereas the present people do not seem to look upon it with any religious superstition, which will account for the growth of vegetable matter inside only during late years. This was further evidenced by our excavations in this building; we found but little depth of soil, very little débris, and indications of a Kaffir occupation of the place up to a very recent date, and no remains like those we afterwards discovered in the fortress.
The rest of the circular building, as the plan shows, is divided off into various smaller enclosures, and in one spot we imagine, by comparison with the temples on the hill, an altar stood; it is now only a heap of rubbish. There are also three remarkable monoliths erected in it, two near the north-western entrance and one behind the altar. They are about 11 feet in height—rough, unhewn blocks of granite, firmly buried in the ground. On the hill fortress, and also, as I have said, on the wall of the circular building, the quantity of monoliths is very marked, and stone-worship seems to have formed an integral feature in the ancient cult of this place. MM. Perrot and Chipiez write (vol. i. p. 58), ‘We find the worship of betylæ (βαιτύλια, bethels, i.e. sacred stones) in every country reached by Phœnician influence’ (vide [Chap. VI]). Probably we shall be more correct in considering it an even more remote Semitic influence, which continued in vogue amongst the Phœnicians until more recent times. Palgrave in his [[119]]Arabian travels also speaks of the many monoliths he saw in Lower Nejed: ‘Huge stones, like enormous boulders, placed endways perpendicularly on the soil. They were arranged in a curve, once forming part, it would appear, of a large circle.… That the object of these strange constructions was in some measure religious seems to me hardly doubtful … in fact, there is little difference between the stone wonder of Kaseem and that of Wiltshire’ (Stonehenge).
The valley between the lower circular ruin and the fortress on the hill is a mass of ruins. About a hundred yards from it, and connected by a wall, is a curious angular enclosure, divided into several chambers at different levels; it has three entrances, all of which are straight, like those at the Lundi and Matindela, and not rounded off like those in the circular ruin. The main entrance leads into two narrow passages: the one going to the left is protected by an ambuscade; the other, going to the right, ascends a slope, at the top of which evidently once stood two round towers, the bases of which we excavated, and near them we found several long pillars, presumably fallen monoliths. But here again the Kaffirs had been living until a recent date, and consequently we made no discoveries here. Outside this ruin we opened three kitchen middens, and came across one or two small articles of interest.