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RECENT ARCHÆOLOGY IN BRITISH AFRICA

1938; Oxford University Press; Volume: XXXVII; Issue: CXLIX Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a101265

1468-2621

L. P. Kirwan,

Global Maritime and Colonial Histories

IN 1895 some enterprising gentlemen floated an Ruins Company in Rhodesia with a view to placing treasure-hunting on a properly organised business basis. Their activities, luckily, were cut short by Cecil Rhodes. The ancient ruins, hundreds of them already ransacked, were taken over by the Administration and an Ancient Ruins Ordinance was passed by the Legislative Council. Among the ruins in Southern Rhodesia thus dug over by the treasure-seekers were the ruins of Zimbabwe, in the heart of the mysterious Empire of the Monomotapa. Throughout the Middle Ages, the legendary fame of Zimbabwe had been spread by Arab, Persian and Portuguese chroniclers. With the rediscovery of the ruins in 1868 by an ivory trader, Adam Renders, travellers' tales gave rise to envenomed and not always scientific controversy. Dr. Randall-Maciver's excavations on the site in 1905 roused a storm of criticism; for he showed, if not as conclusively as was desired, that the stone ruins at Zimbabwe and elsewhere were medieval or even