Methuen & Co
— “Relics & Finds” —
Great Zimbabwe 1902–3
A portion of a soapstone beam, 2 ft. 6 in. long and 1 ft. 5 in. in circumference, formed part of what is known to have been a very tall and slender pillar, which was once surmounted by a bird. This stood on the north wall of the Western Temple on the Acropolis, and was found in 1902. The beam is completely covered with most delicately carved chevron pattern.
A carved soapstone beam, 11 ft. high, which showed signs of once being taller, stood on the platform of the Western Temple on the Acropolis. It fell about 1890, and broke into two parts, and these Mr. Bent removed.
A section of a soapstone beam (Pl. I., fig. 3), carved into rounds resembling a chain of connected balls and decorated with spiral lines, was found in No. 15 Enclosure of the Elliptical Temple, on the lowest floor and 2 ft. below the foundation of the north-east wall of that enclosure.
A curiously carved piece of soapstone (Pl. I., fig. 2), evidently a portion of a beam, was found close to the circular platform in the Platform Area at the Elliptical Temple, among the numerous soapstone beams found at some depth at that spot. The fragment has so broken that it resembles a slipper with a band across the instep. The whole face of it is covered with small raised circular knobs.
Eight carved soapstone birds and birds on beams[33] are known to have been removed from the ruins prior to 1902, and they were mostly found on the Acropolis. Two, it is known, were taken to Johannesburg in 1890, and about the same time the lower portion of a bird (of which the upper portion was found by the author in 1902) was removed and sold to Mr. Rhodes. In 1891 Mr. Bent removed four birds on beams and also the lower portion of another bird, but he did not discover any of them, as the position of all these was well known to settlers both before the occupation and previously to this visit, many attempts having been made to buy these relics from the Mogabe Chipfuno, who persistently refused to part with them. These four birds on beams and another beam on which had once been a bird were standing more or less erect and fixed in granite cement on the Eastern Temple on the Acropolis, which for years previously had been used as a cattle kraal, and the holes and places in which they once stood, and from which Mr. Bent removed them, can be seen to-day. But on the authority of very early visitors, and of the Mogabe Handisibishe, there are still two birds unaccounted for. Possibly the mention of this fact may lead to their recovery. There is a general belief that one of these birds is in a certain museum in Austria, and this is quite possible, seeing that at least two Austrian scientists have visited this country. The total number of birds known to have been found at Zimbabwe prior to 1902 was eight.
FRONT, SIDE AND BACK VIEWS OF SOAPSTONE BIRD, ZIMBABWE