THE ANCIENT RUINS OF RHODESIA, THE monuments of Rhodesia form
one of the most curious problems of archaeology. Though known to the early Portu. guese voyagers, they were forgotten and vanished from observation for more than three centuries, until the British South Africa Company once more opened up the country to explorers. Renders, indeed, had rediscovered the Great Zimbabwe in 1868, and Mauch and Baines had made some explorations ; but little attempt at a serious investigation of these antiquities was made until Theodore Bent took the matter up in 1891. Bent's book was to most people the first news of the subject, and it provoked considerable criticism. His views were based upon an examination of only thirteen sites, and it was impossible to accept conclusions founded upon so imperfect an induction, though no one then had any idea of the number and distribution of these monuments. There were plenty of vague rumours, but what was wanted was an accurate survey. Sir John Willoughby was the first to follow in Bent's steps, and his plans of various enclosures are most valuable. Drs. Schliehter and Peters made independent examinations in 1897 and 1899. Meanwhile Messrs. Neal and
• The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (Monoinotapas /mperium). By B. N. Hall and W. G. Neal. With over 70 illustrations, Maps, and Plans. London: Methuen and Co. [21e. net.] Johnson, intent upon ascertaining the mineral resources of the country, became deeply interested in its history, and have spent five years in a careful examination of an extraordinary number of previously unknown or undescribed monuments, the results of which are published in this volume with the collabora- tion of Mr. Hall, who is chiefly responsible for the historical part. They state that the total number of distinct groups of ruins now known (some covering a couple of square miles) much exceeds five hundred—as against Bent's thirteen—whilst so much still remains to be explored that it would be rash to assume that we are as yet anywhere near a complete register. The descriptions of a large proportion—though under two hundred—of these groups in the present volume, without per- initting finality, undoubtedly suggest various probabilities, to which the authors naturally draw attention. For example, the distribution of most of the ruins or "zimbabwes," between the Zambesi on the north and the Sabi on the south, converging, with chains of fort-like buildings, upon the mediaeval port of Soak, indicates a foreign trade, and the numerous remains of gold-workings in the immediate vicinity of these ruins show what was the staple of commerce. It is easy to see that, whilst protesting that they urge no "definite opinions" onthis subject, and declining "to advance or advocate any particular theory," the authors are warmly in favour of the idea that Rhodesia was in fact the land of Ophir. There is no reason in the world why it should not have been. No one probably will dispute the historical fact that from the earliest times down to the close of the Middle Ages the east coast of Africa was continuously under the influence of Arabian traders—from the epoch of the great Himyerite kingdom, of which much has recently been revealed by Glaser's labours upon the hilnaean inscriptions, to the Mohammedan merchants of the days of the Fatimite and Mamluke owners of the Red Sea ports—and nothing is more natural than that these traders, as kinsmen of the Phoenicians, the chief miners of Western antiquity, should have discovered and worked the gold mines of Rhodesia, and brought the proceeds home from the port of Sonia, itself an Arabic name. There is a good deal to be said for the hypothesis that Rhodesia was, if not Ophir, perhaps the land of Havilah, "a land where there is gold," whence came the precious metal for the adornment of Solomon's temple. The enormous quantity of gold mentioned in the Bible, for which the Hebrews had certainly no equivalent values to offer in barter ; the fact that Jehoshophat's ships, sailing "for gold to Ophir," were wrecked at Ezion-geber, at the head of the Red Sea, whence they would naturally start for East Africa; the absence of gold in any quantity in Arabia or in India ; the 2ombination of gold with apes and ivory in the cargoes (omitting the doubtful "peacocks "),—all these considera- tions point to Rhodesia as an extremely probable source of the gold which the ships of Tarshish (clearly no European port) brought once in three years to Hiram and Solomon. So Professor Keane has argued with much address ; but probability is not proof, and the authors of the present work modestly admit that they are not competent to deal with this complicated problem. All they pretend to do, in their own portentous phrase, is to furnish "a contribution towards the preparation of that brief which, when all the possible evidences forthcoming from the hundreds of ancient ruins in Rhodesia have been secured, shall be submitted to acknowledged archaeologists and antiquarians for their final pronouncement as to the origin of those ancient peoples who have left such substantial evidences of past civilisation and industry in the territories known to-day as Southern Rhodesia."
In the absence of anything that can be called satisfactory inscriptional evidence, the buildings themselves are the most important historical documents, and Messrs. Hall and Neal have done excellent service in preparing careful descriptions, plans, and photographs of the numerous ancient buildings they have examined. That they are extremely ancient no one can doubt, apart from any reliance upon orientation or zodiacal inferences. No people in East Africa could have built such walls and towers in any period of mediaeval history. Their resemblance to the few remains of Himyerite buildings in South Arabia, and also to the ancient forts or temples of Sardinia attributed to the Phoenicians, has often been re- marked. The elliptical enclosures, conical towers and but- tresses and primitive decoration by check, herring-bone, and
chevron patterns are extremely suggestive, and so are the bird-pillars, phallic emblems, and various other objects found in them. But a great deal more has to be done in the way of scientific exploration before their date or origin can be re- garded as settled. "Not a single ruin," as the authors say, "notwithstanding months of continuous work with- in its walls, can be said to have been exhaustively examined." In truth, no thoroughly competent explorer has taken the work in band. Bent saw but few, was limited in time, and after all was slightly amateurish. Schlichter was a man of science but not a trained archaeologist. What is wanted is a man, like Professor Petrie or Dr. Arthur Evans, who understands scientific excavation and the method of systematic observation. Then perhaps something definite may be discovered as to date and origin, in place of the often vague and uncritical guesswork which is sometimes put for- ward as archaeological evidence. Messrs. Hall and Neal make no exaggerated pretensions, and the essential part of their work, the survey of monuments, so far as it goes, is well done, and shows great care and persevering labour. They have at least provided a large mass of data from which to work, and they have directed attention to the sites which require scientific excavation.
In one respect, especially, their examination of the ruins is of the greatest importance. They fully understand gold- mining, and the descriptions they provide of the traces of ancient workings and methods of reducing the ore are the results of expert knowledge. Much of this will be wholly new to their readers. The ancient miners of Rhodesia, though unable to manage deep workings and easily stopped by water, were no mere pickers of surface gold or washers of sand. They understood how to build furnaces and line them with admirably fine cement, they had blow-pipes and crucibles, they could draw gold wire, and manufacture bracelets and other ornaments. Their workshops were at some distance from the zimbabwes, or residences ; rows of mortars sunk in the ground show where the quartz was crushed, and traces of the journey of the gold from mine to mortar, and mortar to furnace, and so to the store-room, and thence along the chain of forte to the coast, may be mapped out with some- thing like exactness. Fragments of ore, tools left in situ as though hastily abandoned, crucibles still lined with gold, traces of gold dust at every place where the store was trans- ported or accumulated, provide a sort of road-book of the ancient gold industry. Every detail of this kind is excellently, and as far as present exploration goes exhaustively, treated in this absorbing volume. A specially interesting detail is the finding of large quantities of gold ornaments, &c.—amounting in value sometimes to over 2200—buried with the bodies of the dead, reminding one of ancient burials in Egypt and else- where. And here a curious problem arises : What has become of the dead of these ancient miners ? It has been estimated by a well-known authority, Mr. Telford Edwards, that at least £75,000,000 of gold must have been extracted from these pre- historic workings ; the industry must have required a large population, doubtless consisting for the most part of native slaves, but with a considerable proportion of overseers and governors of the ruling race ; the exhaustion of the arable land to the depth of two or three spits over large areas points to the cultivation of crops for a numerous people, yet the number of graves found so far is quite insignificant. Such as have been found were beneath the floors of the zimbabwes, covered with fine cement and partly calcined in the process of cementing in heat, and sometimes laid one above the other, to the number of three interments, each separated by a cement floor. But these must have been the graves of great men: the cemeteries of the multitude have yet to be discovered.
It is obvious that this should be the first aim of explorers.. The evidence of skeletons is worth more than any amount of architectural analogies, however striking; since primitive peoples are apt to produce similar houses, but the language of their bones is unmistakable. Another point which might possibly be cleared up by the exploration of graveyards is the cause of the cessation of gold-mining by the ancient workers. It is true that some explorers hold that the natives still carried on the work throughout the Middle Ages ; but there was clearly a change of race and method of building. The abandonment or change was not because the mines were exhausted, for in many oases the tools are found lying
beside a vein which is obviously "ps,ya,ble," and only partly worked. We do not atta,ch ranch importance to the "signs of baste," for Miners often leave their tools behind when they abandon a working; and there is nothing really to show that the desertion of the mines was simultaneous throughout the country. Still, -there is something to be said for the theory that the gold-workers were driven out, not by a revolt of their slaves (though this would be natural enough if the slaves were kept in pits as is here suggested)—since the slaves, who knew how to work, would have carried on the mining— but by an invasion of a warlike race, whom Professor Keane believes he has identified with the Bantus. The place-names in Rhodesia go far to show that there was a Hottentot occu- pation in very early times, and these Hottentots and Bushmen may have been the slaves who worked for the Arabian gold merchants, until an irruption of fighting Bantus overturned the foreign domination and partly ruined the trade. Ques- tions of this kind can never be determined until the graves reveal the ethnological facts.
It will be realised that this elaborate and admirably illus- trated volume abounds in questions of extraordinary interest and mystery. It must not be taken, however, for more than it pretends to be. The historical part is uncritical, there is no attempt to discriminate between "authorities,!' and we constantly find hearsay, hypothesis, and mere probability advanced as positive proof. Such forms as " Aristeas," "the Temple of Haram," "Oceanus .2Ethiopticus," " Periphes states," and the like show that the authors are no scholars, nor do they ever assume to be. What they have done is to collect a vast amount of materials, gathered at first hand, in relation to the buildings and mines of ancient Rhodesia. The value of this collection is very great, especially from the mining point of view, and it remains for the trained archaeologist and ethnographer to carry the work a step further by an exhaustive scientific exploration of the monuments and (it may be hoped) discovery of the graveyards of the prehistorical peoples whose remains offer such curious and tantalising problems to the historian.
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