The Lost City of Solomon and Sheba (17 page)

A second Indonesian invasion of Madagascar is thought to have occurred at the start of the Christian era, these migrants bringing with them a knowledge of terrace-irrigation for rice cultivation. One of the least-explored stone complexes in Zimbabwe is a mighty terrace-irrigation network in the eastern highlands. This was first investigated scientifically by a British archaeologist, Dr David Randall-MacIver. Randall-MacIver was certainly not a Romantic; indeed, he founded the Shona school with his unequivocal report that the Zimbabwe culture was of comparatively recent origin – medieval – and of indigenous Karanga provenance. Nevertheless, Randall-MacIver felt obliged to describe the Inyanga irrigation terraces: ‘The intelligent construction and mastery of gradients shown in the planning of these canals indicate a people with an agricultural knowledge far in advance of any of the Bantu tribes of Central and Southern Africa.'

There is even a written record in support of an Asian immigration to Madagascar in the journals of the Arabian writer, Idrisi (
AD
1154) who reports that Indonesian traders (the al-Zabadj) visited Sofala for the iron ore which was mined in the mountains and was better than Indian iron.

But what has all this to do with the Mapungubwe gold rhino and a race of people who may have treasured gold more as an art material than currency for trade with aliens? After much careful archaeology Professor Dart concluded that San People were smelting iron and making tools at Mapungubwe long before the Bantu entered southern Africa. He and other experienced members of the digs at Mapungubwe and Bambandyanalo further concluded that the early population of these
zimbabwes
(which appeared to predate Great Zimbabwe) was of ‘Boskop-Bush' (San) type and Hottentot in culture. We should also remember that the gold rhino came from an early-period grave. Dart's senior associate, Dr A. Galloway, examined many of the graves, and his conclusions were even more emphatic. In his opinion none of the skulls recovered from the early ‘K2' level of the Mapungubwe excavation were specifically Negroid (Bantu). It should be added that Mapungubwe is arguably the richest cultural site next to Great Zimbabwe in south-central Africa. Its people produced fine pottery, traded with the outside world, and were, as mentioned, fine artists in gold.

Needless to say, in a country then evolving to Bantu rule these theories found little favour, even though they were endorsed by Professor Dart. The official South African archaeological record has, therefore, since 1970, promoted the conclusions of the less-well-known Dr G.P. Rightmire, who redefined Dart's proto-Hottentot skulls as ‘Negroid'. Dr Galloway, however, was not to be moved; indeed, he found this pronouncement scientifically ridiculous: ‘If the Mapungubwe skulls represent the antecedents of Setho-Shona [Bantu] people, then, to allow for this amazing biological change, the Negro must have entered South Africa and settled at Mapungubwe at least six thousand years ago – which is absurd.' And Galloway's judgement was upheld by arguably the most eminent anthropologist of the time, Sir Arthur Keith, and of course by Professor Dart.

These were all eminent men in their fields and it seems unwise, just because they were judged at the time to be politically incorrect, to reject their conclusions outright. We have, at least for the time being, to add to our list of potential authors of the
zimbabwe
culture a whole new race of people, observably skilled in the crafting of precious metals, who probably came to southern Africa via Madagascar. (The closest African gold-port to Madagascar in ancient times was, as it happens, Sofala.)

One of the remaining enigmas of Mapungubwe is that Stone Age hunting artefacts were found intermixed with ‘Bantu' artefacts and human remains in the top two layers of Mapungubwe, ‘reflecting the possible presence of hunter-foragers in the mixed farming community of Mapungubwe'. This is a politically correct way of saying that two racial types – San and Bantu – may have thrived side by side.

Mapungubwe is probably the one stone complex which has been consistently and scientifically studied for the last half-century. A comprehensive survey of all the work was published by the University of Pretoria as recently as 1998 but it is still riddled with intriguing enigmas. There were, for example, trade beads everywhere at Mapungubwe; in fact, the inhabitants appear eventually to have taken the glass trade beads, which they exchanged for gold, and melted them down to make bigger ones – labelled ‘garden-rollers' by the archaeologists. Dr Gardner had decided that the beads emanated from Asia, which was interesting enough given Dart's theory of the origin of the Hottentots, but the other theory about the beads by the respected Professor van Riet Lowe, who now headed the work at Mapungubwe, was even more controversial. Van Riet Lowe nominated Egypt. This, like the Dart/Galloway Bush Boskop skulls was allowed diplomatically to fade into the background.

The 1998 Mapungubwe report reveals, however, that dedicated research has been completed on these particular beads by a team headed by Ms Sharma Saitowitz using colour spectography, chemistry and the analysis of the rare earth elements in the glass. Ms Saitowitz concluded: ‘A particular type of glass used to make beads in Foustat [old Cairo] in Egypt is the same as the glass used to make the beads found on the southern African sites in the Limpopo river valley and elsewhere.'

It is time we rejoined Theodore Bent, who at the start of this chapter was making his way back to Great Zimbabwe, convinced that the gold trade was the key to the authorship of the lost city. ‘Authors' had by now become his favoured term for the builders. This shift of focus resulted, I suspect, from the new information he had been collecting about the extent of ancient gold mining.

It was becoming clear that gold had been been dug and processed across a huge area of ancient Mashonaland, more than enough to satisfy even the appetites of gold-hungry hoarders like Solomon and Sheba. By the turn of the last century, 114,814 mining claims had been registered by white prospectors – more than half of them on the lines of ancient workings. These lines were often 50 to 200 yards long. The new Killarney and Surprise mines had been opened up on ancient lines 1,200 and 1,500 yards long. The depths of these lines of shafts averaged 30 to 50 feet; some exceeded 200 feet. There were also hundreds of adits extending deep into hillsides.

In 1899 Dr Hans Sauer, President of the Rhodesian Chamber of Mines, advertised: ‘Our experience in this country now amounts to this, that, given a regular and extensive run of old workings on a block of claims, it is almost a certainty that a payable mine will be found on development of the ground.' Another mining expert of the time, Mr Walter Currie, confirmed. ‘Experience has invariably proved that where old workings exist, they indicate more or less accurately the length of the payshoot below.'

Is it any wonder that when Theodore Bent then found at Great Zimbabwe a host of items dedicated to gold production which exactly fitted descriptions by the respected ancient archivist, Diodorus, Bent declared them proof of a long-lost alien influence?

An interest parallel to the ancient gold working of Mashonaland is to be found by studying the account of ancient gold workings at the Egyptian gold mines in Wadi Allaga, also given us by Diodorus.

There too the gold was extracted from the quartz by a process of crushing and washing, as we can see from the process depicted in the paintings on the Egyptian tombs. In any gold-producing quarter of Mashonaland, near old shafts and by the sides of streams, innumerable crushing stones are to be seen, used anciently for a like purpose, when slave labour was employed.

Diodorus tells us of the gangs of slaves employed. Of the long dark shaft into which they descended, of which a countless number are scattered still over Mashonaland; and after describing the process of washing and crushing he concludes: ‘They put the gold into earthen crucibles well closed with clay, and leave it in a furnace for five successive days and nights, after which it is suffered to cool. The crucibles are then opened and nothing is found in them but the pure gold a little diminished in quality.'

Hence, it is obvious that the process employed by the ancient Egyptians for crushing, smelting and forming into ingots was exactly the same as that employed by the ancient inhabitants of Zimbabwe; which, in fact, when taken in conjunction with the vast amount of evidence of ancient cult, ancient construction, and ancient art, is, I think, conclusive that the gold field of Mashonaland formed one at least of the sources from which came the gold of Arabia, and that the forts and towns which ran up the whole length of the gold-producing country were made to protect their men engaged in the industry.

The cumulative evidence is greatly in favour of the gold diggers being of Arabian origin, before the Sabaeo-Himyaritic period in all probability, who did work for and were brought closely into contact with both Egypt and Phoenicia, penetrating to many countries unknown to the rest of the world.

The testimony of all travellers in Arabia is to the effect that little or no gold could have come from the Arabian peninsula itself; it is therefore almost certain that the country round Zimbabwe formed one at least of the spots from which the ‘Thesaurus Arabum' came.

Case proven? Well, it is certainly very compelling. Suprisingly, however, Theodore Bent does not opt for Phoenician authorship as obviously as his detractors suggest or as Rhodes might have wished. We can see how he inclines towards a very ancient Egyptian origin long before Solomon and Sheba, but then accepts that this is in conflict with the Zimbabwe artefacts which appeared to support a Phoenician presence. In the end he sells Rhodes quite short by taking a step back from actually naming the authors, leaving us instead with something much more tantalising and mysterious.

The Zimbabwe culture, he says in his final (1892) report to the Royal Geographical Society, is the work of: ‘A race coming from Arabia – a race which spread more extensively over the world than we have at present any conception of, a race closely akin to the Phoenician and the Egyptian, strongly commercial, and eventually developing into the more civilised races of the ancient world.'

Or more simply, he leaves the door wide open.

In summary, the extensive research conducted by this learned expedition on a site which would never be this pristine again, has really not eliminated anyone from the exotic list of authors with which we started. Well, perhaps the Romans. But we have also added a new contender – the ‘Chinese Hottentots'.

C
onfusion reigned supreme for more than a decade after Theodore Bent and the other experts of the Royal Geographical Society left the origin of the Zimbabwe culture up for grabs. Through this open door poured an army of treasure hunters. Close examination of Theodore Bent's cryptic conclusion shows, however, a number of intriguing clues of a revolutionary nature which I now believe he deliberately intended. Every word is carefully chosen:
‘A race coming from Arabia – a race which spread more extensively over the world than we have at present any conception of, a race closely akin to the Phoenician and the Egyptian, strongly commercial, and eventually developing into the more civilised races of the ancient world.'

The more astute of the treasure hunters, like Sir John Willoughby, read these clues and applied them to their digs.

Clue number one is the phrase –
‘closely akin to the Phoenician and the Egyptian'
. Bent was an acknowledged Phoenician expert who, throughout his dig at Great Zimbabwe, had been identifying artefacts as Phoenician, one of which, the ingot mould, even appeared to bear a Phoenician hallmark. The use of ‘akin' here actually eliminates the Phoenicians.

Clue number two is that these people (who are neither Phoenician nor Egyptian although ‘akin' to them and originally came from the Arabian area) are
‘strongly commercial'
. I am sure Bent chose this phrase particularly carefully. Who were the strongly commercial people of the Arabian area in ancient times yet not Phoenician or Egyptian?

Finally, the vaguest line of all which, in the sense that it narrows the field, contains the strongest clue of all –
‘a race which spread more extensively over the world than we have at present any conception of . . .'
. Phoenicians, Egyptians, and the lesser-known tribes of ancient Arabia do not fit that description at all.

I have read and re-read this enigmatic line in the hope of finding a word which would fit all the confusing movements Bent is describing: ‘A race which spread more extensively over the world . . . eventually developing into the more civilised races of the ancient world'. The word is, of course,
diaspora
. Then another thought struck me, albeit one so far-reaching it dazed rather than enlightened. Was Bent describing, as vaguely as scientific rectitude would tolerate,
the
Diaspora, that great movement of a strongly commercial race which came out of Babylon in ancient times and went on to spread more extensively over the world than ever Bent could have guessed, becoming in time part of all the more civilised races of the world?

Was he describing the Jews? They certainly fit! In fact nothing else fits his description as well. Insofar as I am aware, Theodore Bent's conclusion has never been defined, or rather, broken down, in this way before. That is probably because Bent found nothing at Great Zimbabwe that could be directly linked to the Jews. He was personally contemptuous of the Romantic tales of the Jewish King Solomon and Sheba, commenting upon his arrival at the ruins: ‘The name of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba were on everybody's lips, and had become so distasteful to us that we never expect to hear them again without an involuntary shudder.'

I can also confirm that there are no significant traces of the Jews in the ancient records of exploration apart from some sailors on Hiram of Tyre's fleet. The earliest confirmed traders were Mohammedans, the earliest missionaries Catholic, and the local Africans sturdy pagan animists. Not a breath of Judaism anywhere here. Indeed, I suspect I would never have dared to introduce what might be Theodore Bent's secret theory – certainly secret thoughts – were it not for the fact that half a century after he dropped this hint, anthropological studies of a tribe now living directly south of Great Zimbabwe would reveal distinctly Jewish practices and traditions, one of these traditions being that the tribe was of mixed racial origin.