It is perhaps worthy of remark that the centre of the great tower is distant the length of its own height (42·3 feet) from the solstitial line MK, while the centre of the little tower would be the same distance from a parallel solstitial line drawn from the south-eastern extremity of the arc of which G is the centre; and also that the centres of the great tower and the centres of the arcs AK and KB lie in one straight line.
At Matindela the general aspect of the decorated part of the building is towards the setting sun, but the masonry is so rough in its construction that we need expect little accuracy in orientation. The whole appearance of the place suggests that what exists at present is merely a rough rebuilding of an older structure. What remains of the internal arrangements of the building is very fragmentary, and we could find no trace of an altar. Over the doorway there is a herring-bone pattern facing the setting sun at the summer solstice, and adjoining this on its north [[166]]side there is a band of ornament of the dentelle kind with a similar aspect. Above this dentelle pattern there is a loophole in the wall which may have served to pass a ray of light from the setting sun to an altar at some festival. Farther along the wall there is another pattern facing the setting sun at the winter solstice, and on the inside of the wall yet another looking towards the rising sun at the summer solstice. The construction of the doorways at Matindela is remarkable. They have been originally made of considerable width, and then been narrowed very much by square masses of masonry which were built at both sides. The direction of the doorways also seems to have some meaning, for three of them look East 25° North, and four East 25° South, thus corresponding to the direction of the sun rising and setting at the solstices.
At the Mazoe Valley, and to the north-east of Matindela, near Mount Chiburwe, there are well-built ruins of the best period of this style of architecture, but, unfortunately, too little of them remains to allow us to understand their plans. They are both very small, and are not circular, like the Lundi River ruin, but their walls seem to have been built on a series of curves like the wall of the great temple. A very extraordinary thing regarding all the older ruins in Mashonaland is the way in which the stones which once composed the walls have disappeared. They have not been covered up by soil, and there is no trace of them in the surrounding country, and yet in [[167]]these two ruins not one-twentieth part of the stones remain, and all that do remain are in their original places in the walls.
When the western wall was rebuilt at the great temple at Zimbabwe there was apparently a want of stones, and the rebuilders were too lazy to procure more, so they probably shortened the wall by decreasing the size of the temple, and also economised stones by making the new wall much less thick.
The place marked A near the western end of Zimbabwe Hill is remarkable. It is a natural eminence, the height of which has been increased by building. To the south of it is a great mass of masonry which is pierced by several roofed passages, and over which a winding stairway leads from the eastern buildings to the eminence, while a similar staircase leads from the eminence towards the buildings lying northward. To the eastward of the eminence tower great granite boulders, the termination at this end of that line of boulders which caps the hill along its whole length, and which protects the fortress on the north side. At the highest point of the eminence is erected the great monolith before referred to, which seems to have marked the meridian for the altar at R. Close to this monolith stood another made of soapstone. We found its base in its place, and its other fragments, shown in the illustration, were all discovered near. This monolith was decorated with bands of the chevron pattern running halfway round, with images of the [[168]]sun and other geometrical patterns placed between the bands. It seems probable that it served as a gnomon, and that means had been provided for measuring the length of its shadow at midday. The foundation of the monolith is twenty-five feet higher than the site of the altar, and the monolith itself was ten feet long, so that we have a total height for its summit of thirty-five feet above the base of the altar, and it stood fifty feet true north of the altar. At Zimbabwe the altitude of the upper limb of the sun at midday, at the winter solstice, is about 46½°, so that the top of the monolith would then throw its shadow in the direction of the altar, and to within about seventeen feet of its centre. Probably some arrangement had been made near the altar for observing the length of its shadow; and were the shadow received on an inclined plane or staircase, as seems to have been done with the dial of Ahaz, mentioned in the Old Testament, it might be lengthened to any extent and its variations in length increased in magnitude; and so the change in declination of the sun could be observed with considerable accuracy. The sun is little more than three degrees south of Zimbabwe at midsummer, and it would be difficult to measure with accuracy the short shadows then cast, and we do not find anything to show that they had been observed, and the means provided in the two other temples for observing the position of the sun on the horizon would be much more effectual for fixing this solstice.
The positions of the doorways relatively to the [[169]]altars or the centres of the arcs is of interest; and we find that every important doorway in walls of the original period, with the exception of the south-eastern doorway in the temple at the Lundi, and the south-western one in the partly circular interior temple at Zimbabwe, is placed true north of the centre of an arc or of an altar, and the centre of every arc has had a doorway or some other means of marking out the meridian placed north of it. True north of the centre of the tower itself we have a doorway in the wall of the sacred enclosure, and although the wall in which this doorway is made was probably not built at the original period, yet there probably was a doorway in a similar position in the wall which it has replaced. The part of the great outer wall north of the tower seems also to have been marked, for about this point we found a great step constructed on its top about five feet high.
Above the temple at the east end of the fortress on the hill, a cliff rises perpendicularly for fifty feet, and poised on its top there stands a most remarkable great rock which may once have been an object of veneration to the worshippers in the temple beneath it. It forms one of the highest points on the hill. A line drawn true south from this rock and produced 680 yards would pass through the doorway in the great temple and fall on the altar in the centre of the decorated arc. Until this line suggested itself we were puzzled to account for the peculiar character of the doorway. It passes through a wall sixteen [[170]]feet thick, and is itself only three feet wide, and it does not pass through the wall at right angles, but cuts it somewhat obliquely, so that its axis is roughly parallel to the meridian line.
A line drawn true north from the centre of the arc at G will pass through the doorway of the small temple and the centre of the arc KB at P. This line points through the outer wall where the gap occurs, and it is probable that the opening which was made in the outer wall to allow of observation along this line, determined its fall at this point. This meridian line is thirty-six feet distant from the other from the centre of the arc AK, and it must have pointed to the same great stone. But if both these lines point to the middle of this stone, which is 680 yards distant, they will incline towards each other about one degree, and the time of the transit of a star over the stone observed by one line will differ four minutes from that observed by the other. This inaccuracy would be so obvious to the observers that we cannot suppose they would have worked in this way. The great stone measures nearly, if not quite, thirty-two feet across, and were the lines directed, not both to its centre, but one to either side, they would be parallel to each other and would both give the same time for a transit of a star. This would imply that stars were observed, not passing over the stone, but disappearing and reappearing behind it, and a star observed at the altar to disappear would at the same instant reappear to an observer at G and [[173]]P; or if the rock were less than thirty-two feet wide the star would reappear at G and P before it disappeared at the altar. We have thus a sort of double observation of the same meridian transit.
WITHIN THE DOUBLE WALLS. ZIMBABWE