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

by J. Theodore Bent

The form of nature worship which was practised at Zimbabwe found one of its expressions in the worship of the sun, and we have evidence of this cult in some architectural features and decorations of the temples themselves, and in the many images of the solar disc which were found in the temples along with the other symbols of the worship of reproductive power. It was very natural that these two cults should be associated together or merged in one, and it was common to many early peoples to think of the sun in conjunction with moisture as the great creator of all vegetable fertility, for even the most casual observation would show them that in the dark days of winter the vegetable world seemed to sleep, and that it only awoke to activity when the sun’s rays had become more powerful and while the soil was still moistened by rain.

All religions have their times and seasons for special ceremonies of worship, and the appropriate time for the greatest of these festivals of solar worship [[142]]would be at mid-summer, when the sun seemed most brilliant and his rays most energetic. Accordingly we find that at Zimbabwe means had been provided for ascertaining the time of the summer solstice, and that the side of the temple which faced the rising sun at this period of the year was adorned with a decoration symbolical of fertility.

But the temples at Zimbabwe seem also to have served a more directly practical purpose than that of mere worship of the powers of nature, and while regulating the festivals held in honour of natural powers, to have provided the means of observing the passage of the seasons and of fixing the limits of a tropical year, and thus providing the elements of a calendar.

The duration of a day is clearly marked by an apparent revolution of the sun, and from the most remote antiquity a month has been equivalent to the length of a lunation; but there is no equally obvious astronomical phenomenon to enable the length of the year to be fixed; and although the difference between summer and winter is very apparent in most climates, there is nothing which very obviously defines the limits of these seasons, and the periods of spring and autumn are even less marked. But the dates of all festivals in solar worship would have some relation to the seasons; and, besides, the times for agricultural and many other operations would require to be fixed, and it would thus be doubly necessary to find means of marking the progress of the year. By most ancient peoples twelve lunations were considered to be equal [[145]]to a tropical year, but it was soon discovered that this was not so, for the several months did not long coincide with their appropriate seasons, and so the history of most ancient calendars tells of devices to make the twelve lunar months of 29½ days each correspond with the tropical year of 365¼ days. At Zimbabwe things seem to have been better arranged, unless there, too, as in ancient Egypt, they had their troublesome civil year measured by twelve revolutions of the moon, in addition to their sacred year measured in the temples by an apparent revolution of the sun among the stars.

MAP OF ZIMBABWE DISTRICT.

F. S. Weller

The simplest way of ascertaining the period of a tropical year is by observing the position of the sun relatively to the equator, or its declination, and this can conveniently be done either when the sun is on the horizon or on the meridian, but most easily with accuracy in the former way, as the angle to be subdivided will generally be greater, and greater accuracy will be attained, because long shadows can more conveniently be used in this way than in the other. Or the right ascension of the sun might also be observed; that is, its place among the stars, or its position in the zodiac. This can be found most readily by observing the heliacal rising of stars, or the meridian passage of stars when the sun is near the horizon. At Zimbabwe all of these methods seem to have been used, and to do so does not necessarily imply more astronomical knowledge than is possessed by the peasantry in any of the more secluded districts of [[146]]Europe, where watches are not much used, and where almanacks are not read, but where the people have the habit of telling the time of the day and of the year by the motions of the sun and of the stars; for to an agricultural people the change in position of the sun in summer and winter is as obvious as the seasons themselves, and the variation of the times of rising of the stars with the seasons can as little escape observation. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks used the gnomon to measure the length of shadows, and thus ascertain the position of the sun at midday, or its declination. The Chinese also used it at a very early period, and we have similar arrangements in some of our modern churches. Instances of the observation of the position of the sun on the horizon, except at Zimbabwe, are few and doubtful, although gnomons seem sometimes to have been used for this purpose; but ancient literature contains very many references to the observation of the heliacal risings of stars, and ancient architectural remains illustrate these literary allusions. Hesiod often speaks of the times of different agricultural operations having been fixed by the rising of stars, and Egyptian records tell us that the rising of Sirius was observed at the overflowing of the Nile; also it has recently been found that both Egyptian and Greek temples were generally built so that the rising of some star could be observed from their sanctuaries, and a coincidence has been traced between the date of the great festival proper to each [[147]]temple and the time of the heliacal rising of the star towards which the axis of the temple was originally directed. The Malays, at the beginning of this present century, had a tradition that their seed-time had in old days been very well fixed by the rising of the Pleiades, but that since they had become Mohammedans the festivals of their religion and its calendar did not so well regulate their seed-time as was done in old times. It has been found that means were provided by the ancient Egyptians for observing the meridian transits of stars; and did we possess detailed and carefully oriented plans of the temples of Chaldæa and Assyria, there is little doubt that we should find that the meridian had been observed there also.

Thus it is evident that the several means which were adopted at Zimbabwe for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies were used in other countries also, and in all cases they seem to have been used for regulating the time of celebration of religious festivals as well as the ordinary affairs of life. Forms of nature worship analogous to that practised at Zimbabwe seem often to have been accompanied in other countries by an observation of the heavenly bodies. It is also worthy of note that the stars which were observed at Zimbabwe seem all to have been northern ones, and the builders of these temples probably acquired the habit of observing these stars in the northern hemisphere. To this we shall refer again. [[148]]

What El Masoudi says of the temples of the Sabæans of Mesopotamia does not, of course, directly apply to the temples at Zimbabwe; but in the plans of those temples one is reminded of the multiform temples which he describes, and of the mysteries involved in some of their architectural features which he could not fathom, for in these temples of Mashonaland there are some curious evidences of design in plan. A glance at the plan of the great temple suggests that the architects had carelessly drawn a great ellipse on the ground and built round it, getting occasionally out of line and leaving occasional doorways; but when one realises the wonderfully careful nature of the masonry, and the great accuracy with which the comparatively rough stones have been laid in regular courses, and been forced to combine to produce regular forms, and when a careful plan of the whole building has been made, then it is seen that what were regarded as careless irregularities in construction are, in reality, carefully constructed architectural features, which doubtless had some religious significance to the worshippers, but whose meaning remains a mystery to us.