which has been observed. The altar in the eastern
temple in the fortress has been placed ten feet E.S.E.
of the centre of the arc, in order to permit of the
meridian being observed through the gap in the rock
which formed the northern doorway. Here the line
laid off is much shorter than that between the rock
and the great temple, but still fairly accurate observations
could be made. To the north of the centre of
the arc of the great wall of the western temple there
is, as we have already shown, a great monolith erected,
and at one side of this the stars might be observed
at their culminations. As seen from the altar this
monolith would mark out an angular distance of 9°
of the meridian.
It is remarkable that only stars of the northern
hemisphere seem to have been observed at Zimbabwe^
for in the great temple itself the culminations of
southern stars could quite as easily have been observed
as those of northern ones, and in the fortress all view
of the northern sky is almost completely shut off by
the cliffs and huge boulders which form its northern
line of defence | yet every point from which northern
stars could have been observed has been used for this
purpose, and there is no temple there from which
northern stars were not observed, while at the same
tune the openly displayed southern sky has been left
unregarded. This, of course, points to a northern
origin for the people, and suggests that before they
came to Zimbabwe they had acquired the habit of
observing certain stars—a habit so strong that it led
them to disregard the use of the southern constellations,
though they must have known that they would
equally well have served to regulate their calendar ;
it even seems to indicate that they attached ideas of
veneration to certain stars, and rendered them worship.
It seems a plausible supposition that while the
great temple itself was devoted to solar and analogous
forms of worship, the little circular, or partly circular,
temples within its walls, of which we found one fairly
well preserved and fragmentary remains of several
others, were dedicated to the cult of particular
stars.T
here is no sign in the temples of any observation
of anything external to the temples themselves, unless
of the heavenly bodies ; and no features of the surrounding
country, such as prominent mountain-peaks
or great isolated rocks, of which there are many
striking instances near the temples, have had any
regard at all paid to them. The outer walls, with
the exception of the decoration towards the solstices,
are featureless and blank, and the doorways, where
one might expect ornament, are extremely narrow and
entirely plain. When one is within the great temple
one realises how fitting a place it is in which to observe
the starry sky, for the high walls around exclude all
view of the landscape, and the only objects which
attract one’s attention are the heavenly bodies above
one; and at night-time one feels how easily the
thoughts of a star-worshipper could be concentrated
on their proper object.
It is incredible that such a style of architecture
as we have described, and such a civilisation as