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V. 



AN ARABIC INSCRIPTION FROM RHODESIA. 

 By STANLEY LANE-POOLE, M-A., Litt.D. 



(Plate I.) 



[Read May 12, 1902.] 



The Marble tablet represented on Plate I. is remarkable not only 

 as the first Arabic inscription so far discovered in Rhodesia, but as 

 a document relating to a very early settlement of Muslims in South 

 Africa, unrecorded in any Arabic history. Much has been published 

 during the past ten years on the ancient monuments of Rhodesia, and 

 the thirteen sites which formed the basis of Bent's Ruined Cities of 

 Maslionaland have now been multiplied by more recent exploration 

 till they are estimated^ at five hundred distinct groups of ruins, of 

 which however scarcely half have been even partially surveyed, and 

 none has yet received thorough investigation by trained archseologists. 

 These interesting monuments, scattered over the immense stretch of 

 country between the Zambesi and Limpopo rivers, and bearing strong 

 points of resemblance to the remains of ancient buildings in Southern 

 Arabia, have naturally attracted much attention, and their origin is 

 one of the most curious problems that archseology has to solve. The 

 hypothesis that they were the works of Sabaean miners of the period 

 when the South Arabian kingdoms were at the height of their power, 

 more than fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, and that 

 the numerous ancient gold-workings connected with these monuments 

 were really the source of the 'gold of Ophir' which the 'ships of 

 Tarshish' brought for the adornment of Solomon's temple, as argued 

 by Professor A. H. Eeane^ and others, has everything in its favour, 

 except epigraphic proof, and it may still be hoped that fxirthcr ex- 



^ Hall and Neal, Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia, 1902. 



^ The Gold of Ophir, whence brought and by whom ? 1901. 



K.I.A. PKOC, VOL. XXIV., SEC. c] [4] 



