POTTERY BIRDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 10

POTTERY BIRDS

. IN RUINS OF AFRICAN TEMPLE. LONDOIST, September 15. A remarkable find has been made by the expedition led by Dr Leo Frobenius, during excavations of newly, discovered ruins of the Zimbabwe civilisation in the Tati Concession of Bbcliu an aland. It may assist in'establishing the fiate of a hitherto lost , civilisation.; . • The expedition, says a Cehtral News message from Pretoria, has discovered finely, preserved ceramic figures of birds.. identical with the' famous steatite; or soapstone birds which fb'rffie’riy Adp'rhed the temple walls at Zimbabwe. . They disclose an age of pottery akin to that of the ceramic period of the Eastern Mediterranean of the .later Stofie Age.-- The<-sfeatite birds were carved froiin soft rock, which lends itself very easily to 'the tool of thb artist and is very durable; .but the discovery establishes. beyond 'dou'bt that the ancient Zimbabwe artists understood the manufacture of pottery even at a remote time. One significance bf the - discovery of thbse ceramic , birds . for. hard pottery lies ■ in the fact that they may conceivably establish .a? definite link between the ancient civilisations of Assyria and. Zimbabwe. The find once more focusbs attention oh the great ruins of Zimbabwe, whose origin has provided so much discussion for

me. past sixty years. . z . The . fempie at Zimbabwe, according to the theory advanced by Dr Frobe'ffius, fyas built by Indians who had settled hi Africa at the time of a very Ancient, civilisation. On the other hand, . Mr David Randall M’aclver, the famous ■ archaeologist, in his work on “Mediaeval Rhodesia,” maintains that. the ruins and remains at Zimbabwe. are typically African, and that the temple is a hillfort. Dr Frobenius declares that the main link in the theory of Indian Civilisation lies in the ruins found all over South East Africa. It Sbbffi'ed . impossible. to hiffi that these ruins were once fbrtresqes fbr they were easy of access on all sides. In the Majority of cases there was a path ing to the puijdings. An fn’itbr v/all encircled two ' buildings and . prevented anyone outside frbffi seeing; what was' going on behind this wall. In each case it was found - that one of

the buildings had been used for the metal Workers —tile crucibles and other apparatus found prdvirig this. The other building die assumed to be a temple fo‘r in those days the chemist 'and smiths’ work Was regarded as sacred. The Zimbabwei ,ruins do not show two buildings, as do. other ruins in Rhodesia,, and Dr Frobenius is of the opinion that the ‘main building was a temple built by. Indiafis, the construction being similar to Indian remains found elsewhere.:. He declared that nickel bronze from South Africa had been analysed, and had been found to contain the same constituents as bronze articles discovered in Egypt, Sarnia and Crete, which belonged to ancient civilisations. The “teffip'le” referred to is the elliptical temple at Zimbabwe, an ancient stone structure, 292 feet long*, and 220 feet wide, which is supposed®

io nave oeen used tor religious rites. Another theory, however, is that it is simply a fortress round a native kraal. The steatite birds adorned the temple Walls, where they were placed on the tops of tall monoliths. One of is .in the British Museum, but the bird has been broken off. The Cape ToWn Museum possesses several of the steatite’figures. The soapstone birds were referred to by the late Mr Theodore Brent, the African explorer, who was of the opinion, from the position in which most of them were found, that they would appear to have decorated the outer wall of the temple. The birds were all conventional in design. The tallest stood. sft 4in in height. Mr Brent thought that the birds must have been intended to represent hawks or vultures, and he had little doubt that they were closely akin to the-Assyrian Astarte or Venus, and represented the female element in creation. Similar birds were ascribed to Astarte among the .Phoenicians,