The San Francisco call., 1899-05-07


interesting than Zimbabye
The Mombo ruins consist of a number Of
buildings, of which the central CORE
spends to the circular temple in zimha-
bye. while the others are additional in
closures and forti1cations The central
building is. from an architectural and
astronomical point of view, the most in
teresting ruin south of the equator The
appearance of it is, as l have mentioned
before similar to the Zimbabye temple
but the difference between the two is (and
l know no better comparison) that of an
early Roman basflica of simple feature
compared with that of a cathedral of the
most refined Gothic period While we
have on the outside wall of the. Zmbabye
temple only one astronomical pattern and
only few indications of them on Zim-
babye hill, the principal building of the
MOmbo ruins is literally covered with as
Economical ornamentations. In spite of
various gaps. | have counted not less than
twenty-three different ornamentations of
the best workmanship.
The length Of the central Mombo ruin
Gas far as the gaps allow to measure it,
is 135 feet. and its average width seventy
feet. and the whole appearance is like
Zimbabye. that of an ellipse. On the
western side of the interior of this build
ing is an extensive artificial platform of
the same cement which is found in the in
terror of Zimbabye, but it has. different
from the latter, a much greater elevation
in order to have a perfect view over the
surrounding country. The northern por-
tiOn Of this central building is formed by
three high terraces beautifully executed
which abruptly end toward the true
north. They are decorated with Zimbabye
and other patterns. This arrangement
har I1-it6 +I,a ,N1o
to the astronomical ornamentation of
Zimbabye and Lundi.
The eastern part of the building consists
of a number of smelling furnaces. of the
same cement as the platform. Most of
these furnaces are partly destroyed but
| found one which is almost intact. South
of the principal building are heaps of rub
bish, where remnants of blowppes cruci-
bles and quartz are frequent, which can
leave no doubt that gold production was
the object of the furnaces just described.
We recognize therefore in these Mombo
ruins the identical features which my
predecessors and myself have ascertained,
viz: % solar worship, (2) Notifications
and () gold production. Moreover, I am
fully convinced that the great number Of
different ornamentations which the plan
shows you had. apart from solar worship.
also to do with the observation of the
principal planets and stars; but | was not
in a position to spend the time necessary
to investigate this point thoroughly.
AS the platform from which the obser-
vations were taken is at present in very
dilapidated state and as it will take weeks
to mathematically arrange and discern
the different patterns while | had ONLY
days at my disposal. / considered it best
to make as carefully az l could the plan
of the building before you, and / hope
that either somebody else or myself will
soon be in position to ascertain all these
further details. This will not be difficult
as the Mombo ruins are easily accessible.
being only short distance from the main
road between Bulawayo and Gwelo. A
police camp is only eight miles off. and
the excellent farm and store of Mr. Rixon
(who is known all over Matabeleland) is
also in close proximity.
After all that / have explained I should
like to say a few words about the much
discussed question of ODhir | am well
aware that this name has a somewhat
mysterious and unscientidc sound But
this is unjustified. At the time when
Lassen, Gesenius, Petermann and others
discussed the Ophir question it was from
want of definite details that theories of a
somewhat unscientific character were
started, thus discrediting to a certain ex-
tent in the course of the years the whole
problem. But nothing is more unjustifed,
because the basis of the whole Ophir
problem. viz, the reports of the Old Tes-
lament. are in every respect reliable and
well defined and are, from a scientific
point of view, just as good as the reports
of Herodotus, Ptolemy Pliny and others.
My first step in this direction was to
examine at what time the various authors
of the Old Testament have written their