The above figures show conclusively that these rounded features, excluding the ends of walls which are almost always rounded, are in a far greater proportion than 146 to 13 which are angular, and at least three of the latter, if not others, for reasons explained elsewhere, can be shown to have been erected at a much later period, one being built upon a floor of common Makalanga daga, and another débris containing ordinary Kafir articles of no very great age.
All the entrances in the main outer walls, save one, are rounded, the few angular entrances being found, with two exceptions, in slighter walls, mainly divisional, some of which were erected later possibly to suit the immediate convenience of later occupiers, for divisional walls had been removed, reconstructed, or entirely fresh ones erected in new directions in almost every ruin, and in some instances the foundations of the later walls cross at right or oblique angles over the reduced summits of older divisional walls.
Walls of the earliest period widen out as they near entrances. This feature is not present in plumb and angular walls of later construction.
There is no evidence whatever in the rounded entrances that they were ever covered over, but in two angular entrances on the Acropolis the butts of the broken slate lintels still remain in the side walls.
Although there are not sufficient proofs to enable one to definitely determine whether the rounded entrances as a rule were once covered over, some of the evidences to negative the covering in of rounded entrances may be noted:—
(a) Had such entrances been roofed in, the collapse of the lintels must have brought down far more of the walls than have fallen.
(b) The courses of the blocks at the necessary height above the floor of the entrances on either side do not always correspond.
(c) The top courses near the summit of the walls on either side of the entrances show distinct signs of curving inwards towards the entrances. This is particularly noticed on the east side of the north-west entrance to the Elliptical Temple.
(d) No splinters of slate or granite beams which could have been used as roofing were found in any of the very many rounded entrances.
(e) Two intact rounded entrances, one open up to the summit on either side to a height of 19 ft., one entrance being at the east end of Pattern Passage on the Acropolis.