Some very thin pottery covered with white enamel some inches only down from the rim towards the outer and inner base, with thick perpendicular bars of dull blue glaze. Excellent pottery of brown clay, very thickly covered with glaze of sea-green and deep lake colours, was found near the same spot.
10. A MEDIÆVAL ARAB TRADING STATION
One of the most interesting discoveries recently made was at Renders Ruins in the Valley of Ruins. In a corner of one of the enclosures of these ruins, and at some depth, and all within a few feet, were found the glazed pottery with Arab lettering, an iron lamp-stand and copper chain, an iron spoon of great age, copper snake-rings (pronounced not to be of native make), and several other articles suggesting some far back period of an Arab occupation, most probably of mediæval times. Over this collection of finds was a deep bed of soil silted by rains from higher ground, and on this surface were fragments of a Makalanga clay floor broken up by the roots. The Arab traders gave the first description of these ruins to the Portuguese, and Barbosa (1514), De Barros (1552), and Livio Sanuto (1588), mention the existence of Great Zimbabwe on the strength of information concerning it received from the Arab gold and ivory traders.
In all probability this was an Arab trading centre of mediæval times, and by “taking stock” of the barter goods, some corroboration of this suggestion may be obtained. The “stock in trade” consisted of:—
2 pints of small yellow and green glass beads which are unknown to present natives.
1 pint of similar beads of larger size, also unknown to present natives.
100 (at least) porcelain beads, ribbed, and of sea-green colour, also unknown to natives.
15 lbs. of twisted iron wire-work in large coils for making bangles, and cut up into lengths for bangles.
5 lbs. of twisted brass flat wire in large coils also, not cut into lengths for bangles.
5 lbs. of twisted brass rounded wire, ditto.
4 doz. brass flat wire bangles and a great quantity of fragments of other bangles.
Cowrie shells.
The mediæval traders might have received the following from the natives:—
2 elephant tusks (decayed).
2 wart-hog tusks.
20 (about) pieces of beaten gold.
Several pieces of broken gold-wire bangles.
As the Arabs traded for gold produced by the natives, and also for ivory, no doubt they or the natives would fossick in the ruins, then much clearer of débris, for gold which they or the Arabs might have known was to be found in the enclosures. The beaten gold was all found within a few inches, and though its edges were pierced with tack-holes, pannings of the soil showed no gold tacks. As the Makalanga of those times were at their zenith of power, it is quite possible they did the actual searching themselves, and then parted with their finds to the Arabs, who, as history shows, only occupied the land on sufferance, the Arabs making their usual gain, which, according to Barbosa, was “one hundred for one.”
It might well be asked why these old Arabs left their goods behind them. The fickle policy of successive Monomotapas might be a sufficient explanation of their apparently hasty exodus. According to Portuguese records Kapranzine, the Monomotapa in 1620, sided with the Portuguese as against the local Arabs, and the succeeding Monomotapa “Pedro” in 1643 maintained this policy. But the disappearance of the Arab traders from Renders Ruins will in all probability always remain an unsolved enigma. But one question may be asked with regard to the beads found here—Were they “beads of Cambay”?