ABSTRACT
The relation of these buildings to the others is not difficult to surmise. The" Temple" being the royal residence, these are no doubt the dwellings of the chief persons in the tribe. They are unfortified, since the impregnable " Acropolis" was close at hand for any occasion when a city of refuge was needed. In the valley, then, no doubt, lived those wealthy traders who received the gold brought in from neighbouring districts and bartered it with Arab merchants from the east coast. I8 Actual mining operations were not carried on at Zimbabwe, for there is little or no trace there of anything connected with the preliminary processes of crushing, washing, and retorting. All this must have been done at the more distant places where the gold was found, and whence it was brought by caravans to the capital.19 Zimbabwe itself was simply the distributing centre. No unmelted gold is found in the ruins, though small trinkets, wire, tacks foil, and beads have been turned out in considerable quantities at one time and another. Possibly the gold beads were a sort of currency, for we read in a Portuguese report of the year 15 1 3 that "all the gold brought to Sofala is wrought into very small beads," and that when any king sent a gift to the captain of Sofala it would be "a bunch of very small beads of gold." (1'.R. i. 8 I, 82.)
The buildings are quite of a kind to suggest that their occupants were men of wealth and position. No trouble or expense was spared in their construction. The granite bed-rock was covered with a cement pavement, as much as two metres thick in some places, to make a level and dry foundation; and upon this were erected walls of which the masonry is often as good as that in the" Temple."
