Who built
them? What purpose did they serve? These are questions that must have
perplexed many generations, and many different races of men.
The researches of Mr. Wilmot prove to us indeed that in the Middle Ages
Zimbabwe or Zimboe was the seat of a barbarous empire, whose ruler was
named the Emperor of Monomotapa, also that for some years the Jesuits
ministered in a Christian church built beneath the shadow of its ancient
towers. But of the original purpose of those towers, and of the
race that reared them, the inhabitants of mediaeval Monomotapa, it is
probable, knew less even than we know to-day. The labours and skilled
observation of the late Mr. Theodore Bent, whose death is so great
a loss to all interested in such matters, have shown almost beyond
question that Zimbabwe was once an inland Phoenician city, or at the
least a city whose inhabitants were of a race which practised Phoenician
customs and worshipped the Phoenician deities. Beyond this all is
conjecture. How it happened that a trading town, protected by vast
fortifications and adorned with temples dedicated to the worship of the
gods of the Sidonians--or rather trading towns, for Zimbabwe is only one
of a group of ruins--were built by civilised men in the heart of Africa
perhaps we shall never learn with certainty, though the discovery of
the burying-places of their inhabitants might throw some light upon the
problem.
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