TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 701 
3. Excavations at Ehnasya, in Egypt, with special reference to a Series of 
Roman Lamps. By Professor W. M. Fuinpers Perrit, D.C.L., 
LL.D., PRS 
4. Recent Explorations at Great Zimbabwe. By R. N. Hat. 
The writer has just completed, on behalf of the Chartered Company, over two 
years’ exploration and preservation work at the ruins of the Great Zimbabwe. 
The ruins’ area is now shown to be more than three times larger than has hitherto 
been stated ; many of the minor ruins, and also reconstructions of and additions to 
the older ruins, have been ascertained to be of no great antiquity, some dating most 
probably only from the thirteenth or fourteenth century of this era, and others are 
even more recent. It is now believed, on several obvious grounds, that the 
eastern half of the Elliptical Temple, and that which contains the best built and 
most massive walls, and also the sacred cone or ‘ high place,’ is the oldest structure 
at Zimbabwe, while the western portion is surrounded by a wall of later and 
poorer and altogether slighter construction, probably also of the thirteenth century, 
or somewhat later, which wall took the place of a more substantial wall with a 
wider sweep outwards towards the west. The eastern has yielded to every explorer 
phalli in abundance, the author's discoveries bringing the ascertained number of 
true phalli found there to considerably over a hundred, together with carved beams 
and the older class of relic; while in the western half of the building not a single 
relic with any claim to antiquity has yet been found, the most remote period of any 
relic discovered here being considered by Dr. Wallace Budge, Keeper of Egyptian 
and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, and other experts, to date from 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of this era. Moreover, excavation has now 
for the first time shown the imperfect joint between the older and later walls. No 
ancient sign-writing has been discovered, but old post-Koranic writing on pottery 
was found in some minor ruins now known to have been occupied by Arab 
colonists. Important entrances and passages have been unburied, cement floors 
exposed, and gold in various forms discovered. The hills and valleys for some 
miles round Zimbabwe have been systematically searched for ancient or medizval 
burying places without success, but from traces of walls and other possible signs in 
some of the more secluded valleys further searches may locate them. The history 
of the local native race of Makalanga, ‘People of the Sun,’ has now been ascer- 
tained for a period of at least two hundred years, as also an account of the native 
occupation of the ruins for a considerable number of generations past. Altogether 
the recent work, for which full credit should be given to the British South Africa 
Company, brings the mystery of these ruins much nearer solution, and it is con- 
fidently anticipated that when the full statement of the results of the recent 
examination has been considered by experts it will be possible to speak more 
definitely as to the original builders of these imposing and massive ruins. 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19. 
_ The following Report and Papers were read :— 
1, Report on Anthropometric Investigation in Great Britain and 
Ireland.—See Reports, p. 330. 
2. The Alleged Physical Deterioration of the People. 
By Professor D, J. Cunnincuam, U.D., F.R.S. 
' Summary in Man, 1904, 77. 
