The religious symbolism of these birds is further attested by our finding two tiny representations of the larger emblems; they, too, represented birds on pillars, the longest of which is only three and a half inches, and it is perched on the pillar more as the [[187]]bird is represented in the zodiac of Denderah. Evidently these things were used as amulets or votive offerings in the temple. Lucian alludes to the phalli used as amulets by the Greeks with a human figure on the end, and he connects them with the tower thirty cubits in height.
| PHŒNICIAN COLUMN IN THE LOUVRE | ORNATE PHALLUS, ZIMBABWE |
In the centre of the temple on the hill stood an altar, into the stones of which were inserted and also [[188]]scattered around a large number of soapstone objects representing the phallus either realistically or conventionally, but always with anatomical accuracy which unmistakably conveys their meaning, and proves in addition that circumcision was practised by this primitive race; ‘its origin both amongst the Egyptians and Ethiopians,’ says Herodotus, ii. 37, 104, ‘may be traced to the most remote antiquity.’ We have seen in the previous description of the tower the parallel to Lucian’s description of the phalli in the temple at Hierapolis. Here, in the upper temple, we found no less than thirty-eight miniature representations of the larger emblem; one is a highly ornate object, with apparently a representation of a winged sun on its side, or perchance the winged Egyptian vulture, suggesting a distinct Semitic influence. There is a small marble column in the Louvre, twenty-six inches in height, of Phœnician origin, with a winged symbol on the shaft like the one [[189]]before us; it is crowned by an ornament made of four petalled flowers. This winged globe is met with in many Phœnician objects, and MM. Perrot and Chipiez, in their work on Phœnicia, thus speak of it as ‘a sort of trade-mark by which we can recognise as Phœnician all such objects as bear it, whether they come from Etruria or Sardinia, from Africa or Syria.’ And of the stele in the Louvre the same authors say, ‘We may say that it is signed.’ A carefully executed rosette with seven petals forms the summit of our object found in the temple. Now the rosette is also another distinctly Phœnician symbol used by them to indicate the sun. We have the rosette on Phœnician sepulchral stelæ in the British Museum in conjunction with the half-moon to indicate the heavenly luminaries, and here at Zimbabwe we have this object surmounted by a rosette, rosettes carved on the decorated pillars, and the eyes of the birds, as before mentioned, are made in the form of rosettes. The fact of finding these objects all in close juxtaposition around the altar and in the vicinity of the birds on pillars is sufficient proof of the nature of the objects and their religious symbolism. Thus we have in both cases the larger emblems and their miniature representatives, the tower and the smaller phalli, the large birds and the tiny amulets, proving to us that the ancient inhabitants of the ruins worshipped a combination of the two deities, which together represented the creative powers of mankind.
LONG DECORATED SOAPSTONE BEAM IN TWO PIECES
A curious confirmation of this is found in the [[190]]pages of Herodotus, who tells us[6]: ‘The Arabians of all the gods only worshipped Dionysus, whom they called Ourotalt, and Urania;’ that is to say, they worshipped the two deities which, in the mind of the father of history, represented in themselves all that was known of the mysteries of creation, pointing to the very earliest period of Arabian cult, prior to the more refined religious development of the Sabæo-Himyaritic dynasty, when Sun-worship, veneration for the great luminary which regenerated all animal and vegetable life, superseded the grosser forms of nature-worship, to be itself somewhat superseded or rather incorporated in a worship of all the heavenly luminaries, [[191]]which developed as a knowledge of astronomy was acquired.
DECORATED SOAPSTONE BEAM
DECORATED SOAPSTONE BEAMS