KING SOLOMON’S MINES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20931, 22 January 1930, Page 14

KING SOLOMON’S MINES.

Miss Gertrude Caton-Thompson, British archaeologist, has dealt what appears to be a deathblow to the belief that the mysterious' Zimbabwe ruins in Southern Rhodesia are relics of King Solomon’s gold mines. For half a century scientists have been baffled by these massive stone buildings scattered by the hundreds over an area of 600 square miles with labyrinthine sages and connecting chambers telling of some .civilisation which flourished and died.

Now, after many months of investigation with pick and shovel. Miss CatonThompson m convinced that the ruins are not Semitic or Oriental in origin, but were built by African negroes. “ It is inconceivable bow the theory of the Semitic origin of Zimbabwe could ever have originated,” she writes in a preliminary 'report. "Every detail in the plan of: the buildings and the, contents seems to be African Bantu. Instead of a . degenrate offshoot of a higher Oriental civilisation, we have a vigorous native culture showing a high organisation and originality in industry,” The date of the ruins, she declares, must be measured in centuries, mot in millenniums, and she fixes. the date of * most of them at about the time of Charlemange’s reign in Western Europe. The mystery of Zimbabwe’s history remains, however, and Miss Caton-Thomp-son says it is a challenge to South African students to discover what caused such a flowering of Bantu culture a thousand years ago.