The centres of the arcs seem generally to have
been important points, and altars were sometimes
erected at them from which the culminations or
meridian transits of stars could be observed, and
on which sacrifices were probably offered to the sun
when it was rising or setting at either of the solstices.
Around the outside of. the wall of the great temple,
between the points marked A and B on plan, there
extend two bands of a kind of chevron pattern, formed,
as will be seen from the illustrations, by placing stones
on their edges. This pattern seems to have been
symbolical of fertility, and it extends along the part
of the wall which receives directly the rays of the
sun when rising at the summer solstice. It reminds
one of the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for water,
and of how naturally the idea of water would be associated
with fertility in the mind of a solar worshipper.
It also resembles the symbol for the zodiacal
sign of Aquarius, and we might suppose that the
temple was built when the sun was in this sign of the
zodiac at the summer solstice, did such a supposition
not carry us back to too remote a period. Besides,
the sun is generally believed to have been in Capri-
cornus at the December solstice at the period at
which the zodiac was invented, and when its signs
received their names.
One hundred and seven and four-fifths feet from
A and the same distance from K and from B is
the centre of the arc a k , and at this point is some
ruined masonry which seems once to have formed an
altar. Zimbabwe is in South latitude 20° 16' 30", and
consequently the sun, when rising there at the summer
solstice, would bear East 25° South were the
horizon level. But Mount Varoma interposes itself
between the temple and the rising sun at this time,
so that the sun attains an altitude of 5° before its
rays reach the temple. Then its amplitude will be
more nearly 24°, and a line produced in this direction
from the altar will pass across the doorway of the
sacred enclosure, where the curve of the wall changes
its radius, and, roughly speaking, through the middle
of the chevron pattern. The same line drawn in an
opposite direction for seventy-three feet would fall
on a tall monolith which we there found lying by its
well-built foundation. Where the pattern ends at a
and B the rays of the sun are nearly tangential to the
wall, so that all parts of the wall, and those parts
only, which receive the direct rays of the sun when
rising at the summer solstice are decorated by this
symbolical pattern.
The sun’s rays would not fall on the altar at this
time, and it seems strange to have an altar devoted
to solar worship under the shadow of a wall; but the
same objection would apply to every part of the
interior of the temple, and we can hardly suppose
that the priests at Zimbabwe performed their ceremonies
of worship outside of the temple, as some
tribes of Arabs do with some stone circles at the
present day, neither is there any sign of such ceremonies
having been performed on the top of the
broad wall. The monolith, seventy-three feet from
the altar, was sufficiently tall to receive the rays of