ORIGIN OF ZIMBABWE-CULTURE. 335 



plan, conical tower, stone birds, resetted cylinder, plialli, and 

 other religious symbols found at Zimbabwe, so may Arab, 

 Persian, and Indian records, when examined, most probably 

 throw additional light on Rhodesia's ancient gold industry. 



But an important feature accentuated to-day, fai more so 

 than in the Hammond, Edwards, and Rhodes times, is that ou! 

 oldest rock mines parallel in probable period of antiquity, in 

 mining methods adopted, and in degree of skill in mining, the 

 undoubted ancient gold mines in India, especially those in 

 Northern Mysore. Alining engineers who are acquainted with 

 the mines in both countries point without hesitation to the 

 community in origin of ])oth. In very recently published articles 

 this has been made a])])arent. A f^riina facie case for the con- 

 sideration of such a community of origin has been established. 



Now let me briefly revert to the Bantu who have occupied 

 this area. According to the conjectured datings of the arrival of 

 the P)antu south of the Zambesi, of several authorities, and 

 taking from them a mean dating, we find that the oldest of the 

 rock mines in the country had been worked long centuries prior 

 to the descent of the liantu hordes south of the Zambesi. Our 

 oldest mines are ])rior to this invasion, and (HU- decadent mines 

 and the present Zimbabwe Temple are just subsequent to it. 

 The arrival of the Bantu appears to have brought about a com- 

 plete cessation of tlie more skilled rock-mining, which assuredly 

 about that period met with some sudden catastrophe. The 

 presence of the Bushmen, who up to that time had been the 

 exclusive occupiers of this area, would have proved no hindrance, 

 to the taking of the gold. It certainly was not l^artered for ])ut 

 simply exploited, fetched, and taken out of the country without 

 let or prevention from any quarter. 



The strong i)robability is that South Arabians of the ancient 

 kingdom of Saba, referred t(^ so frequently in Ploly Writ as so 

 rich in gold that they purveyed it to the Phoenicians, who were 

 the trading intermediaries between \\'estern Asia and Eastern 

 Europe, which peojile of Saba then enjoyed the monopoly in 

 navigation and trade in the Indian Ocean and its coasts, taking 

 the treasures of all its countries to their emporium of Ophir in 

 South Arabia, were the people who exploited our gold reefs, and 

 that they employed Indian labour to work the mires 



The connection which, in some remote times, both Euroi)ean 

 and South African anthropologists, ethnologists, and philologists 

 strongly afifirm to have once existed between Bantu, Semite, and 

 Indian, would find a solution in this hypothesis, as also a reason- 

 ble explanation of the blurred form of the foreign culture dis- 

 played at Zimbabwe, i.e., in the mixed merlia by whxh the culture 

 was originally imported, tran.slated, and dis])layed. 



But the importance of ])ursuing researches into Aral)ian, 

 Persian and Indian records has so far not been fully recognised. 

 Mr. Rhodes sent Mr. Wilmot to Rome, and Dr. Theal to Europe 



