Several monoliths have fallen since 1888. One immense granite beam which occupied an upright position immediately north of The Platform in the Elliptical Temple has disappeared since 1891. A monolith in the interior facing the Western Entrance has fallen within the last few years, while a tall granite beam at the same spot has broken off just above the ground within the same period. Another tall granite beam occupied the Central Area in the temple, and this has also disappeared within the last seven years.[44] Relic prospectors of the nineties appear to have excavated round the spots occupied by monoliths and caused their fall.

The finest specimen of a bird on a soapstone beam yet discovered at Zimbabwe was found by the author in Philips Ruins in February, 1903.

SLATE AND GRANITE BEAMS.

These are plentifully found in all the enclosures. Sections and splinters of slate beams are found in entrances which have portcullis grooves, one still standing in position 8 ft. above the floor. Slate beams used as entrance posts in portcullis grooves were erected before the building of the entrance, as the enclosing blocks follow the irregularities of the beams. Wood posts found in some portcullis grooves in poorer built walls are not considered ancient, and their comparative modernity is testified to by experienced builders who have very recently examined a collection of such posts. Mopani hard wood and mahobohobo have not been used in all such instances, some of the posts being of soft wood. Wooden posts have not so far been found in well-built entrances. The posts outside the clay huts of old Makalanga are older in appearance and condition than the majority of the posts found in the poorer entrances, though they very closely resemble one another in measurements and in the wood used. In one instance the groove was too large for the wooden post which had been wedged in with granite splinters, the granite being only slightly weathered.

Slate and granite beams were also employed for the bonds and ties of walls, also for ties in sharply curved walls, also for supporting the roofs over covered passages.

The nearest point to the slate formation is seven miles in a north-easterly direction. It is believed that the long granite beams were brought from the Lumbo Rocks, one and three-quarter miles to the south, where a great quantity of exactly similar shaped beams are to be seen lying scattered round the high perpendicular column of granite, the sides of which split off into the shape of the long monoliths found on the Acropolis.

CEMENT DADOES

One of the discoveries made recently in clearing the lower portions of interior faces of walls from débris, which appears to have covered them for centuries, is that some portions of such walls have been found to be covered with the remains of excellent granite cement dadoes. This is particularly to be noticed on three walls of the Sacred Enclosure, on the south wall of No. 11 Enclosure, and at the Little Enclosure and the Upper Passage on the Acropolis, and in other ruins where portions of this dado still remain.

These dadoes extended to a height of 7 ft., the cement being found in patches still intact and in the joints of the blocks to this height, the courses above this height being entirely free from traces of cement.

In passages and narrow places great quantities of this cement lay on the original floors along the bottoms of the walls on either side, some fragments showing on their backs the ribbed markings of the courses up against which the cement had been pressed, also bevelled edges, as if from the top and ends of such dadoes. This was particularly the experience on clearing out the Parallel Passage in the Elliptical Temple. It is possible that these dadoes had once facings of white soapstone clay, beautifully smoothed, for this was found on some fragments of such cement dadoes, and the facing, when cut with a knife, powdered exactly as soapstone does.