The Lost City

Leaving the Oasis of the Lion & Elephant behind us we headed North, as we drove along the Great North Road, it all but disappeared completely!

The tar turned to gravel as we took the detour into the bushveld, this turned out to be the first of several long detours. We bumped and rattled along, dust in clouds, as buses and trucks charged towards us, headed South. The passage through the bush, no longer a road, wound its way seemingly with a whim of its own. We got the feeling that, we were now in Africa, proper.

Time became what it should be, the space between now and later, where later is an unknown. When will we get to the end of this dusty road ? When we get there.

That's Africa. How far is it ? Not far.

We did have a destination in mind, The Ruins, some people call it. Others say Great Zimbabwe, or, the Lost City of King Solomon. There has always been some controversy surrounding Great Zimbabwe because there really is some mystery as to who built it and why?

Just south of the town of Mashvingo, once know as Fort Victoria, in colonial times, lies the remains of what must be the oldest and the largest construct of pre-colonial southern Africa. Construct is not really the right word, possibly edifice is better. The walls are reminiscent of the castle walls, that I have seen in Europe, older castles that are already mostly in ruins. There have been attempts to put an age on these grey stone walls, with no mortar of any kind, just stone blocks that fit together, one on top of the other in an impressive bit of masonry magic. The answer was not 42, possibly because Deep Thought wasn't asked the question. An estimate of the 12 th century has been mooted. I have just asked Deep Seek and they concurr with that idea of circa 12 th century.

The walls must be nearly ten metres high and form an enclosure that would have provided the same protection to its occupants, as the castles of Europe. Not the grand schloses of Germany, rather the early castles of tenth century Scotland. Not to be disparaging about the castles of the 10 th century, or their builders, my arguement is that castle building was in its relative enfancy at that time. However, I am no expert on castles, I may be completely wrong.

As we stood gazing at these granite-stone edifices amongst the granite outcrops of the African bush, it occurred to me that here was an African castle, in what is now the middle of nowhere. It obviously had been the middle of somewhere when it was built. We had taken most of the day and numerous detours to arrive at the hotel and campsite that is a short walk from this strange stone monolith, that has stood for centuries in the wilds of Africa. Who had built it and why ?

The prevailing explanation, let's call it the national perception, is this was the centre of a kingdom that was established around about that time. It thrived and then ended for some unknown reason. They would have had herds of cattle, being pastorilists, and they mined and traded gold. And possibly people ?

If that was the case then an interesting question is who did they trade with and why did the city not continue to grow? Why is there only one " castle " in all of southern Africa? Admittedly, there are other stone walls dotted around Zimbabwe but they are no where near the size of Great Zimbabwe. These other stone builds are low walled forts, similar to what can be found on the kopjie over looking the Great Enclosure.

The first European explorers dubbed this structure that is some distance away, the Acropolis, for some reason; possibly they thought it had been a temple? However, pillars there are none. My own impression is it may have been a fort and a lookout.

Great Zimbabwe had virtually disappeared into the African bush when the first white men, who were hunting in the area, discovered it. Or perhaps, they were lead to it by local tribes people. This to me seems the strangest part of the entire mystery, the local inhabitants had no desire to occupy the Great Enclosure and it's surrounds.

It had been abandoned. I recall reading that in a nearby ravine thousands of the same square shaped granite stones, that the walls are built with, can be found. They were seemingly dumped there, at first they were assumed to have been stones that were being prepared for future construction but then it was revealed that the actual quarry, from which the stones had been cut, was at a more distant location on the other side of the Great Enclosure. One of these researchers then put forward the theory that these rocks had been caste aside, possibly as part of an attempt at deconstruction out of anger or rejection of what this all had stood for?

Another part of the mystery of Great Zimbabwe are the bird like effigies that had been placed on the top of the stone walls of the Great Enclosure. They were carved out of soap stone and had stood upon the great stone walls for, literally, centuries. Until these foreign hunter fellows showed up. Each of the Zimbabwe birds followed the same theme but each one differed from each of the others in small details. These birds could be the greatest clue to the mystery of Great Zimbabwe. There may have been more than the nine, that are now on display in the little museum, we will never know. Ironically, these nine birds had to be retrieved from all over the world. Some were still on the continent, in Cape Town, while others and flown the coop to as far as Berlin. They were removed by various characters, who scaled the walls, plucked them out of the stone and carried them off as artefacts. No native african had done that for hundreds of years, which implies a spiritual or sacred signifigance to these totems, me thinks.

No one, to my knowledge, has come up with a reasonable explanation to the mysteries of Great Zimbabwe, with its massive stone walls and carved Zimbabwe birds. If I wasn't already fully occupied with raising children and supplying fantastically colourful and imagiantively printed clothing to the world, but mostly to Scotland and the Lake District, I would attempt to discover more. It is a fascanating mystery lost in the mists of time.

It was these two tasks, above, that drew us to continue the journey northward to our little piece of land on the outskirts of the modern day, sprawling city of Harare. The thatched tree house home we had enjoyed so much, a few years previously, had gone up in smoke; as told in these pages.

Circumstances and a kind friend had provided us with the possiblity of a new and very different home. An old bus, that once traveled the streets of a city called Salisbury, had come to rest on our land. Now, we would come to rest in her.

For now and into the foreseeable future, we are living in a bus.

We are on the road to nowhere.

Come on inside :)