Zimbabye
or GREAT ZIMBABWE (zēm-bäb-wa), a notable ruin in Ma- 31° 10′ 10″ E.; 3,300 feet above seashonaland; in lat. 20° 16′ 30″ S., and long. level. It is the principal of a series of similar remains along the W. side of the Sabi river, and consists of a large ellip- 35 feet high and 16 feet thick) on a tical building (280 feet long, with walls gentle rise, with building extending into the valley, and an immensely strong labyrinthine fortress on the opposite hill, 400 feet above. The older buildings There is a considerable number of little are beautiful examples of dry masonry. images of the solar disk; while the two conical towers in the sacred inclosure on the lower hill, as well as the chevron ornamentation there, and various objects found in the citadel point to phallic forms of worship. The ruins evidently formed a garrison for the protection of a gold-producing race in remote antiquity, of whose work many traces have been found a smelting furnace made of hard cement, clay crucibles with little specks of gold adhering, on ingot mold of soapstone, burnishers, crushers carved soapstone birds, etc. Theodore Bent, who explored the ruins in 1891, assigned this enterprise to pre-Mohammedan Arabians (with possibly Phœnician influences), as both the objects of art and the special cult indicated are utterly foreign to the African races. K.
Mauch would identify the region with the OPHIR (q. v.) of Solomon's time.