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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 61 



At the great ruin Zimbabwe, in South Africa, there are huge 

 boulders about 50 feet high ; immediately below the highest is a 

 curious little plateau adorned by huge monoliths and soapstone pedes- 

 tals supporting gigantic stone birds, the tallest of which stood 5 feet 

 4 inches in height. Several of these monoliths are decorated with 

 life figures, one of which, njS feet high, is made of soapstone and 

 adorned with geometrical patterns. In Bent's account l of this ruin 

 occurs the following forcible description : 



Such is the great fortress of Zimbabwe, the most mysterious and complex 

 structure that it has ever been my fate to look upon. Vainly one tries to realize 

 what it must have been like in the days before ruin fell upon it, with its tor- 

 tuous and well-guarded approaches, its walls bristling with monoliths and 



Fig. 11. — Stone birds. Zimbabwe, Africa, from Bent. 



round towers, its temple decorated with tall, wierd-looking birds, its huge 

 decorated bowls, and in the innermost recesses its busy gold-producing furnace. 

 What was this life like? Why did the inhabitants so carefully guard them- 

 selves against attack? A thousand questions occur to one which one longs in 

 vain to answer. The only parallel sensation that I have had was when viewing 

 the long avenues of menhirs near Carnac, in Brittany, a sensation at once 

 fascinating and vexatious, for one feels the utter hopelessness of knowing all 

 one would wish on the subject. When taken alone this fortress is sufficiently 

 a marvel ; but when taken together with the large circular building below, the 

 numerous ruins scattered around, the other ruins of a like nature at a distance, 

 one cannot fail to recognize the vastness and power of this ancient race, their 

 great constructive ingenuity and strategic skill. 



Although we have no positive evidence that the South African 

 obelisks are religious, the probability is that these monoliths illustrate 



1 J. Theodore Bent, The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland. London, 1892, p. 112. 





