Читать книгу Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia онлайн

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As one strays through the Sacred Enclosure, thoughts come:—What were the relative positions of magic and religion, especially in the complicated and closely observed Phallic worship of these ancients; whence the zodiacal, astronomical, and geometrical knowledge of the builders; what of the touch of tragedy in their exodus or departure; the exact meaning of the granite, slate, and carved soapstone monoliths on the summits of the walls; the origin of the occupiers; was Rhodesia the Havilah of Genesis; did it provide the Solomonic gold; of the close kinship of these successful ancient gold-seekers from Yemen or Tyre and Sidon to the Hebrews of Palestine; and of their intimate connection in origin, language, and neighbourhood which Holy Writ abundantly declares existed from the ninth chapter of Genesis until Paul preached in Phœnicia?

Gazing at the Sacred Tower, one thinks of the Tower of Siloam, and of the “high places” of Samaria, and of the times when even this form of worship became the state religion of Judah under Ahaziah; and sitting at the conjectured site of the ancient altar, where the writer has found in numbers the stone emblems of their faith, thoughts arise of the Bethel stones of the Hebrews, the Bethûl or “the dwelling-places of God” of the Phœnicians, and the Penuel or “Face of God” of the Midianites.