Lost Civilizations – Africa: A History Denied
There was once a country in
Southern Africa called Rhodesia.
The indigenous people of the
land there were dominated by
European invaders, who had
justified their claim to the land
by asserting falsehoods about
the simultaneous arrival of
European and native peoples.
Evidence of ancient stone ruins
was framed by European
archaeologists in such a way as
to support a non-indigenous
claim to the land. It was
reasoned that “Bantus” were
incapable of the intelligence
required for stone masonry and permanent architecture. Therefore the
ancient structures must have been built by a lost European civilisation.
Therefore the European claim to the land would extinguish that of the
native peoples.
However, the Shona people knew the truth. Their leaders had never lost
contact with their ancestors, the true architects of the ancient structures.
To this day they still commune with past monarchs through ceremony,
and retain the sacred knowledge of their ancient history.
Both sides of the debate around the origins of the ruins centred around
colonial cultural assumptions of permanent architecture being an
indication of “civilisation”. Does this imply that cultures based on
sustainable living in closer relationship with the land are somehow
“uncivilised”, as they build more temporary dwellings?
But whatever your position on the nature of “civilisation”, the fact
remains that the ruins have since been proven to be of Shona origin, and
carbon dating of the site confirms that these indigenous people occupied
the land centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
Lost Civilizations – Africa: A History Denied
Watch the Video and Answer the Following Questions:
1) Who were the first to “arrive” in South Africa: White or Black settlers? How do
we know?
2) Explain Karl Mauch’s theory of who built Great Zimbabwe.
3) Why was Mauch’s theory so popular with Europeans at the time?
4) Describe some aspects of the Shona religion.
5) Explain the theory described in the movie as to why the Swahili people of the
East African coast adopted the Islamic faith. Are you convinced by this theory?
6) “Africa has no history. There is only a history of Europeans in Africa.” Explain
why you agree or disagree with this quotation.
Read one of the three alternative source documents regarding the building of Great
Zimbabwe. Is the argument convincing? Explain your answer with proof.
Alternate Source #1 - GREAT ZIMBABWE: A History
Almost Forgotten
Prof. Manu Ampim
MEANING: The name “Zimbabwe” is variously translated from the Shona language to mean “sacred
house,” “venerated houses,” “houses of stone,” “ritual seat of the king,” “court,” or “home or grave of the
chief.”
Imba Huru (Great Enclosure wall)
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
The civilization of Great Zimbabwe was one of the most significant civilizations in the world during the
Medieval period. European travelers from Germany, Portugal, and Britain were astonished to learn of this
powerful African civilization in the interior of southern Africa. The first European to visit Great Zimbabwe
was a German geologist, Carl Mauch, in 1871. Like others before him, Mauch refused to believe that
indigenous Africans could have built such an extensive network of monuments made of granite stone. Thus,
Mauch assumed that the Great Zimbabwe monuments were created by biblical characters from the north: “I
do not think that I am far wrong if I suppose that the ruin on the hill is a copy of Solomon’s Temple on
Mount Moriah and the building in the plain a copy of the palace where the Queen of Sheba lived during her
visit to Solomon.” Mauch further stated that a “civilized [read: white] nation must once have lived there.”
Later Europeans also speculated that Great Zimbabwe was built by Portuguese travelers, Arabs, Chinese, or
Persians. No consideration was given to the possibility of local indigenous Africans having built the ruins
of Great Zimbabwe, because European writers generally agreed that Africans did not have the capacity to
build anything of significance, particularly not monuments made with skilled stone masonry.
In 1890, British imperialist and colonizer Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) conquered a large portion of southern
African and had the region named after himself. Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) and Southern
Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) came under British control and Rhodes echoed the theme of Mauch as he
argued that the Great Zimbabwe monuments were build by foreigners. To promote his goal of
misrepresenting the origins of Zimbabwe, Rhodes established the Ancient Ruins Company and financed
men such as James Theodore Bent, who was sent to Zimbabwe by the British Association of Science, and
sponsored by Rhodes. After his investigation Bent concluded in his book, Ruined Cities of Mashonaland
(1892), that items found within the Great Zimbabwe complex “proved” that the civilization was not build by
local Africans.
In 1902, the British continued with their falsification agenda as British archaeologist Richard Hall was hired
to investigate the Great Zimbabwe site. Hall asserted in his work, The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (1902),
that the civilization was built by “more civilized races” than the Africans. He argued that the last phase of
Great Zimbabwe was the transitional and “decadent period,” a time when the foreign builders interbred with
local Africans. Hall went out of his way to eliminate archeological evidence which would have proven an
indigenous African origin of Great Zimbabwe. He removed about two meters deep of archeological
remains, which effectively destroyed the evidence that would have established an indigenous African origin
of the site. He condescendingly stated that his goal was to “remove the filth and decadence of Kaffir
occupation.”
In 1905, soon after Hall’s destructive activity, British archeologist David Randall-MacIver studied the mud
dwellings within the stone enclosures, and he became the first European researcher of the site to assert that
the dwellings were “unquestionably African in every detail.” After MacIver’s assertion, which was almost
equivalent to blasphemy to the British imperialists, archeologists were banned from the Zimbabwe site for
almost 25 years!
It was in 1929 that British archeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson led the first all-female excavation.
Caton-Thompson investigated the site and was able to definitively argue in her work, The Zimbabwe
Culture: Ruins & Reactions (1931), that the ruins were of African origin. She assessed the available
archeological evidence (artifacts, nearby dwellings), and the oral tradition of the modern Shona-speaking
people, and compared them to the ancient sites to determine the African foundation of Great Zimbabwe.
Despite Caton-Thompson’s conclusive evidence, the myth of a foreign origin of Great Zimbabwe continued
for another half a century until Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Ian Smith was the last major British colonial figure to falsify evidence of Great Zimbabwe’s origin. In
November 1965, Smith had established a white minority government that declared its independence from
the British homeland government, and thus this colony broke away from Britain to form an independent
regime under Smith. Ian Smith became “prime minister” of Southern Rhodesia. He continued the colonial
falsification of Great Zimbabwe’s origins by developing a fake history and a policy of making sure that the
official guide books for tourists would show images of Africans bowing down to foreign innovators, who
allegedly built Great Zimbabwe. It was not until 1980 that the native Zimbabweans overthrew Smith’s
minority government and ended the colonial era. In that year, Robert Mugabe became president and the
country was renamed “Zimbabwe,” in honor of the Great Zimbabwe civilization of the past.
President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
This distortion of the history of Zimbabwe has had an enduring legacy. The colonial era (1890 - 1980) had
a destructive impact on the daily lives of native Zimbabweans. Not only was their heritage stolen, but the
best farmland and resources were also taken by British colonists. This 90 years of domination and
oppressive colonial rule was fueled by the ideas of Cecil Rhodes, who had the greatest colonial scheme of
any modern imperialist. Rhodes envisioned the British control of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope in the
south to Cairo in the north, thus the slogan from “Cape to Cairo.” His goal was to colonize the entire
African continent and “to paint the [African] map [British] red.”
Rhodes stated his colonial goals in his 1877 “Confession of Faith”:
“We know the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty
to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this
one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more
of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.”
http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~wmills/rhodes_confession.html
Unfortunately, despite Rhodes’ disastrous impact on the southern African region, he is buried (as he
requested in his Will) in the peaceful area of Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe. The local Ndebele
people call this area Malindidzimu (“the place of benevolent spirits”). However, there is a current effort to
have Rhodes’ remains removed from the park. In 2004, Zimbabwe is under the control of native Africans,
and President Mugabe has instituted a land reform policy to correct the crimes and theft of the past, as the
philosophy of “one farmer – one farm” is part of this policy. Nonetheless, this equitable land redistribution
program is predictably opposed by imperialists George Bush and Tony Blair, as well as by British settlers
such as Ian Smith.
“Cape to Cairo”
Cecil Rhodes
Rhodes’ grave in Matopos National Park
THE FIVE BASIC HISTORICAL QUESTIONS (5 BHQs)
ON GREAT ZIMBABWE
The five Basic Historical Questions (5 BHQs) are a fundamental set of questions that should be used to
summarize and analyze a culture or civilization. The answers to these questions put the civilization in
historical context and this gives our research structure and meaning.
1. When Did the Civilization Begin (Time Period)?
The civilization of Great Zimbabwe reached its zenith from 1100–1450 AD, although local Shona-speaking
farmers had settled in present-day Zimbabwe nearly a thousand years earlier.
2. Where Was the Civilization Located?
The location of Great Zimbabwe is in south central Africa, in current-day Zimbabwe, between the Zambezi
(north) and Limpopo (south) rivers. The Great Zimbabwe site is situated on a high plateau, mostly over
1000 m. (3,250 ft.)
3. Why is the Civilization Important?
The Great Zimbabwe civilization is important for several reasons:

The Zimbabwe site, featuring the Great Enclosure wall, is one of the most astounding regions with
monuments in Africa, second only to the Nile Valley pyramid region.
The ancient plan of Great Zimbabwe is in two parts: the hill complex and the valley complexes. The
hill complex is where the king kept many of his treasures. Although he lived in the Imba Huru (or
Great Enclosure) in the valley, he spent considerable ritual time on the hill. Several important
enclosures exist within the hill complex. The principles ones are the ritual enclosure, the smelting
enclosure and the iron-keeping enclosure.
The valley complexes are dominated by the Imba Huru. The height of the main wall of the Imba
Huru is about 32 feet, it is 800 feet long, and utilizes an amazing 15,000 tons of granite blocks. The
impressive blocks were constructed without mortar. The building of this complex took skill,
determination and industry, and thus the Imba Huru demonstrates a high level of administrative and
social achievement by bringing together stone masons and other workers on a grand scale.

The extensive trading network made Great Zimbabwe one of the most significant trading regions
during the Medieval period. The main trading items were gold, iron, copper, tin, cattle, and also
cowrie shells. Imported items included glassware from Syria, a minted coin from Kilwa, Tanzania,
and Persian & Chinese ceramics from the 13-14th centuries.

Great Zimbabwe was an important commercial and political center. In addition to being in the heart
of an extensive commercial and trading network, the site was the center of a powerful political
kingdom, which was under a central ruler for about 350 years (1100–1450 AD). The site is
estimated to have contained perhaps 18,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities of its day.
The conclusion is inescapable that Great Zimbabwe had a condensed population sufficient for it to
be considered a town, or even a city. However, many Western writers have attempted to reduce the
significance of Great Zimbabwe by several methods: by estimating low population numbers (e.g.
only 5,000 instead of 18,000 inhabitants); calling the dwellings “huts” instead of homes; calling the
areas “villages” instead of towns or cities; and identifying the rulers as “chiefs’ instead of kings.
These writers are well aware that smallness means less significance.
Imba Huru (Great Enclosure wall)
Conical Structure (inside Imba Huru)
4. How Did the Civilization Begin?
The Great Zimbabwe site was settled around 350 AD by Shona-speaking farmers, who migrated into this
elevated plateau region to avoid the tsetse flies, which can kill both people and cattle by causing “sleeping
sickness.” The disease trypanosomiasis, or more commonly sleeping sickness, is transmitted by the various
species of tsetse flies, which transmit the disease through their saliva. The Great Zimbabwe site was a safe
haven high enough to avoid the flies, and this allowed the Shona-speaking migrants to farm and raise their
cattle. Eventually, developments led to the formation of the Great Zimbabwe state at the end of the 11th
century. Two general theories (technological innovations and intensified trading activities) have been
advanced to explain the rise of the Zimbabwe state.
5. How Did the Civilization Decline?
Great Zimbabwe declined and was abandoned around 1450 AD for unknown reasons. The migrants left
Zimbabwe and founded the northern kingdom of Monomotapa and other successor states. There has been
much speculation about Zimbabwe’s decline as theories of its fall have ranged from over-farming, the
population depleting the land resources, a drastic weather change, and a decline in the important gold trade.
Further research will have to provide more information on this question.
Much of the wealth which remained at Great Zimbabwe was removed through the centuries by European
explorers, treasure hunters, souvenir seekers, and plunderers such as Richard Hall. The site is but a shell of
what it once was, as the artifacts were vandalized by these European groups and destroyed or hauled away
by them and eventually sent to various museums throughout Europe, America, and South Africa. Today,
there are about 20,000 tourists who visit the site each year and they continue to cause additional damage to
the ruins, as these tourists climb the walls for thrills and to find souvenirs.
A NOTE ON SOURCES

Written Sources: There are no primary written documents available regarding Great Zimbabwe.

Oral History: The oral history of the local Shona-speaking people is a valuable source of
information on Great Zimbabwe, particularly the information this history provides regarding
spiritual beliefs and building traditions.

Archeological Evidence: Most of the physical evidence of Zimbabwe’s history and significance is
derived from archaeological evidence from nearby dwellings, and various items on site such as the
trading items, daga homes, granite walls, and soapstone figures of birds (which have become
Zimbabwe’s national bird and is part of the national flag). Modern Shona pottery has also been a
key source of comparison and documentation.
Soapstone bird figure
Imba Huru (Great Enclosure wall)
Additional Sources:
Molefi and Kariamu Asante, “Great Zimbabwe: An Ancient African City-State,” in Blacks in Science
(1983), ed. Ivan Van Sertima, pp. 84-91.
Graham Connah, African Civilizations (1987).
Peter Garlake, Great Zimbabwe (1973).
D.T. Niane, ed., General History of Africa, vol. IV: Africa from the 12th to the 16th Century (1984).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/zimbabwe.html
Alternate Source #2 -
Zimbabwe
Medieval Zimbabwe (Great Zimbabwe) has earned much acclaim for it magnificent and massive stone structures. The structures were
so impressive many erroneous stories were dreamed up to deny credit to the black natives; today, though, all scholars agree that the
black people of the region with, "no one from the outside world to guide them,"1 developed and built the massive stone castles and
walls.
Origins, Government and Economy
Little is known of the origins of Great Zimbabwe, yet we do know that a small number of Iron Age people were living in the Great
Zimbabwe by at least the 4th century AD. A significant settlement took place in the 10th or 11th century, and by the 14th century the
foundation a powerful kingdom was in place.2
Although gold became the nation's major source of wealth, "Most historians," D.T. Niane notes, "agree that gold was not the origin of
the wealth of Zimbabwe," but, like many African cultures, it was, "the considerable development of cattle on the grass plateau which
was free of the tsetse fly."
From about the late twelfth century," Peter Garlake tells us, "diversification, expansion, affluence, and a concomitant of these,
increased social, economic and functional specialization took place in both cultures so that in the end, entire settlements could, like
areas within sites, be built and used for limited functions by certain groups or clusters of people." 3 With the expansion of the metal trade
and textile production--as demonstrated by the increase of spindle whorls--Zimbabwe became a flourishing feudal state from AD 12501750: stretching over 500 miles from the Zambezi River to Transvaal. 4
There were some central cities in Great Zimbabwe but most people lived in small villages as farmers or cattle-herders.5
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Architecture
"All serious scholars now perceive Great Zimbabwe as an essentially African development, built of local raw material and according to
architectural principles that have endured from the use of these media over many centuries." 6
~B.M. Fagan, Oxford Archeologist
The first stonewalls of the region were built in the 13th century. Today over 300 stone walls from medieval times stand in the land of
modern Zimbabwe and its surrounding nations. These structures have been lauded as, "very curious and well-constructed," as early as
1501 by the Portuguese de Goes, and as possessing, "exceptionally sophisticated drystone masonry," as studied recently by University
of New England Archeologist, Graham Connah.7
The greatest ruins are located in the, "Great Zimbabwe." Great Zimbabwe is a sixty-acre site obtaining two massive stone structures.
One, the "Acropolis," is a succession of stone buildings located on a high hill that overlooks a much larger enclosure, called the
"elliptical building." The "elliptical building" was likely a royal palace and fort. It is over 300 ft long and 220 ft wide-somewhat larger
than a football field.8The wall surrounding the castle is 244 meters long, 10 meters high, and 5 meters thick.9
As noted by Connah, "There was never any doubt about its African origins in the minds of those who real understood the archaeological
evidence,"10 Still, ridiculous stories were dreamed up to deny credit to the blacks of the region. The two most popular stories were that
Phoenicians built the structures, or they were King Solomon's mines. Even though all the evidence clearly disproved these theories
beyond a doubt the public gladly accepted the fictional stories; their misperception of black Africa was of savage cannibalistic spear
throwers running around in their underwear--it was too difficult to believe those blacks could have built what they clearly had.
Archeologists were never fooled. On behalf of the British Association as early as 1905, Egyptologist, David Randall MacIver,
examined the structures and observed, "whether military or domestic, there is not a trace of Oriental or European style of any period
whatever (while) the character of the dwellings contained within the stone ruins, and forming and integral part of them, is unmistakably
African…the arts and manufactures exemplified by objects found within the dwellings are typically African, except when the objects
are imports of well-known medieval or post-medieval date."11
The style is easily traced to early architecture of the region. "The architecture of Great Zimbabwe," B.M. Fagan, an archeologist from
the University of California and Oxford reports, "is a logical extension of the large enclosures and chiefs' quarters which were built of
grass, mud and poles in other African states, but merely constructed here in stone….The Great Enclosure itself was divided into a series
of smaller enclosures, in which the foundations of substantial pole-and-mud houses are to be seen. It was presumably the dwelling place
of the rulers of Great Zimbabwe, an impressive and politically highly significant structure…..With the exception of the conical tower,
which is a unique structure of unknown significance there is nothing in Great Zimbabwe architecture which is alien to African
practice."12
The Heritage of World Civilization, a book compiled by Harvard and Yale historians, asserts that the, "civilization was a purely African
one sited far enough inland never to have felt the impact of Islam." 13
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Fall of Zimbabwe
In the 1490's much of the kingdom's population was forced to move north due to land exhaustion. The only way the people could have
remained would have been through irrigation or artificial fertilization, neither of which could be done in the Savannah woodland near
Great Zimbabwe.14 Consequently southern portions of the great state broke off and became independent. The Portuguese' destruction of
the Swahili Coast/Inland Africa/ Indian trade, (see Swahili Coast and Fall of Africa) which had been a vital economic function of the
region, crippled Zimbabwe's economy. East Africa and Zimbabwe had reached its apogee in the 15th century, but a century later it was
mostly destroyed.
Basil Davidson wrote the following passage on Zimbabwe's place in medieval Africa:
"The foundations of Zimbabwe go back to much the same period as the foundations of Ghana. The initial raising of the walls of the,
"Acropolis," and the, "elliptical building," was not much later than the time when Mali grew strong, and Timbuktu and Djenne saw their
transformation into seats of thought and learning. The miles of careful terracing and the hilltop forts and store-pits and stone dwellings
of Niekerk and Inyanga were made while Mohammed Askia and his successors ruled the Western Sudan." 15
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1
Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 281
2Africa
from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 533
3
Ibid, 533
4Iliffe,
John. African: The History of a Continent. Great Britain: University of Cambridge, 1995, 101
5Africa
6Ibid,
from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 535
532
7Connah,
Graham. African Civilizations. Armidale, N.S.W., Australia: University of New England, 1998, 193
8Davidson,
9Ibid,
Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 243
193
10Connah,
183
11Davidson,
12Africa
13The
Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 255
from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 542
Heritage of World Civilizations: Volume One: To 1650, 4th ed. Editor, Owen, Cralyce. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Simon & Shuster, 1997,
512
14Africa
from the twelfth to the sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 548
15Davidson,
Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 282
Alternate Source #3 - Mystery of Great
Zimbabwe
by Peter Tyson
The first whispered reports of a fabulous stone palace in the heart of southern Africa began
dribbling into the coastal trading ports of Mozambique in the 16 th century. In his 1552 Da Asia, the
most complete chronicle of the Portuguese conquests, João de Barros wrote of "a square fortress,
masonry within and without, built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar
joining them."
De Barros thought the edifice, which he never saw, was Axuma, one of the cities of the Queen of
Sheba. Other Portuguese chroniclers of the day linked the rumored fortress with the region's gold
trade and decided it must be the biblical Ophir, from which the Queen of Sheba procured gold for
the Temple of Solomon.
This notion persisted for centuries, right up until the monument's 19 th-century European
"discovery." That distinction fell to a young German named Carl Mauch. In 1871, Mauch, eager to
seek for the fabled ruins of Ophir, penetrated deep into what is today southern Zimbabwe. In
August, he reached the home of a lone German trader, who told him of "quite large ruins which
could never have been built by blacks." On September 5, local Karanga tribesmen led Mauch to
the site.
In the midst of a wooded savanna backed by bare granite hills stood a city of stone. Its beautifully
coursed walls curved and undulated sinuously over the landscape, blending into the boulderstrewn terrain as if having arisen there naturally. Bearing no mortar, as de Barros had correctly
heard, the walls nevertheless reached enormous height, standing as high as 32 feet over the
surrounding savanna. Of fully 100 acres of these granite enclosures, not a single one was straight.
Mauch was looking at the greatest pre-Portuguese ruins of sub-Saharan Africa.
Origins
Unfortunately, Mauch, for all his tenacity, was "no thinker,"
as Peter Garlake, author of the definitive archeological text
on Great Zimbabwe, deemed him. And Mauch only boosted
the Portuguese theories of three centuries before. The
soapstone and iron relics he uncovered told him that a
"civilized [read: white] nation must once have lived there."
The highest of Great Zimbabwe's walls
From a lintel, he cut some wood that he described as
soar 32 feet above the surrounding
reddish, scented, and very like the wood of his pencil.
savanna.
Therefore, he concluded, the wood must be cedar from
Lebanon and must have been brought by Phoenicians. And
therefore, the Great Enclosure—the edifice's most impressive structure, which local Karanga
called Mumbahuru, "the house of the great woman"—must have been built by the Queen of
Sheba.
As it turns out, Mauch's description of the wood aptly characterizes the African sandalwood, a
local hardwood that later visitors also found in the walls of the Great Enclosure. But no one would
know that for years.
In the meantime, Mauch's line of reasoning, distinguished as it was by the most purblind logic,
perfectly suited Cecil Rhodes, whose British South Africa Company (BSA) occupied Mashonaland
in 1890. (Mashonaland lies just to the north of Great Zimbabwe.) Inextricably steeped in his native
country's racist views, Rhodes bought into Mauch's take without a second thought. Indeed, on
Rhodes' first visit to the site, local Karanga chiefs were told that "the Great Master" had come to
see "the ancient temple which once upon a time belonged to white men."
Eager to nail down the edifice's exotic origins once and for
all, Rhodes and his BSA quickly sponsored an investigation
of Great Zimbabwe. They hired one J. Theodore Bent,
whose only claim to expertise lay in an antiquarian interest
born of travels through the eastern Mediterranean and
Persian Gulf. He adhered just as tenaciously as Rhodes to
the notion of the city's non-black origin, though to his credit
he didn't automatically swallow the link to the Queen of
Sheba. (As he set to work at Great Zimbabwe, he later
recalled, "the names of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba were on everybody's lips, and have become so
distasteful to us that we never expect to hear them again
without an involuntary shudder.")
All artifacts that Theodore Bent turned up
pointed to an indigenous origin to Great
Zimbabwe and its people, but he would
have none of it.
All the artifacts Bent subsequently uncovered screamed "indigenous." Pottery sherds and spindle
whorls; spearheads of iron, bronze, and copper; axes, adzes, and hoes; and gold-working
equipment such as tuyères and crucibles—all were very similar to household objects used by the
local Karanga. Yet Bent, incapable of following where the evidence might lead him, concluded ("a
little lamely and nebulously," notes Garlake) that "a prehistoric race built the ruins ... a northern
race coming from Arabia ... closely akin to the Phoenician and Egyptian ... and eventually
developing into the more civilized races of the ancient world."
Bent was amateurish and narrow-minded but not utterly incompetent. The same could not be said
of Richard Nicklin Hall, a local journalist and author of The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia. In what
would prove to be one of the most sickeningly misguided assignments in the history of
archeological preservation, the BSA appointed Hall Curator of Great Zimbabwe, with a mandate to
undertake "not scientific research but the preservation of the building." Instead, Hall, hell-bent on
finally settling the issue of its origins, launched into a full-scale "archeological" investigation.
Claiming he was removing the "filth and decadence of the Kaffir occupation," he scoured the site
for signs of its white builders, discarding from three to 12 feet of stratified archeological deposits
throughout Great Zimbabwe. An archeologist who visited the site shortly after Hall left deemed his
fieldwork "reckless blundering ... worse than anything I have ever seen."
Word eventually got back to the BSA of Hall's desecration of southern Africa's greatest
archeological treasure, and he was dismissed. But the damage had been done. "Hall's disastrous
activities left only vestiges of archeological deposits within the walls," wrote Garlake in his book
Great Zimbabwe, "a paucity that was to inhibit all future scientific work."