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was proof positive that this was Ophir, material evidence which would transcend speculation. He began collecting every Zimbabwe artefact he could lay his hands on, starting with the items Mauch found.
    The object which would delight his heart and, in my view, change the course of his life and arguably result in his early death, was at that moment travelling south through Matabeleland concealed in the baggage of a hunter, Willie Posselt, who had retraced Mauch’s footsteps. In 1889, Posselt went looking not for ancient ruins but for ‘King Solomon’s mines’ as described by Mauch, and he had the luck to hire a native guide who promised him stone images of a king and queen. These had to be of Solomon and Sheba, Posselt naturally concluded. The guide took him to a group of simple huts on a stone kopje where he was introduced to the chief. This chief, whose name was actually Mugabe (no relation to the present incumbent), ruled over the valley containing Mauch’s ruins. Adam Renders is nowhere in evidence. Posselt was also told that the ruins had last been occupied by a tribe called the Barozvi who practised sacrificial rites, and that the area was still regarded as sacred by the local people.
    Chief Mugabe was very reluctant to let Posselt enter the valley but the hunter was well armed and well endowed with trade goods. Posselt also had an armed Swahili bodyguard, Klass, who helped with the persuading. On this occasion, however, Posselt found nothing of interest in the valley ruins, certainly no statues of King Solomon and Sheba and he gave up and went back to hunting. On his way back, however, curiosity got the better of him and without seeking the chief’s permission he climbed to the hilltop fortress that Mauch had labelled ‘the Acropolis’, a place which had been banned to Europeans heretofore.
    The reason for that was immediately obvious. Posselt had trespassed on the most sacred site at Great Zimbabwe. In the centre of an enclosure around what most experts agree was an altar he found four soapstone birds carved on the tops of tall columns or stelae. These enigmatic birds, each exquisitely and individually shaped, decorated with chevron patterns, studding and attendant animals, faced east towards the rising sun. Posselt records:
    Each one, including its plinth, had been hewn out of a solid block of stone and measured 4 feet 6 inches in height; and each was set firmly into the ground. There was also a stone shaped like a millstone and about 18 inches in diameter, with a number of figures carved on the border.
    I selected the best specimen of the bird stones, the beaks of the remainder being damaged, and decided to dig it out. But while doing so, Andizibi [a relative of Chief Mugabe whose village was on the same hill] and his followers became very excited and rushed around with their guns and assegais. I fully expected them to attack us. However, I went on with my work but told Klass, who had loaded two rifles, to shoot the first man he saw aiming at either of us.
    Posselt paid Andizibi with blankets ‘and some other articles’. For this he got the one stone bird and the perforated stone. The bird on its pedestal was too heavy to carry, so he hacked it off! The other stone birds he hid, ‘it being my intention to return at a future date and secure them from the natives’.
    Word reached Cecil Rhodes of Posselt’s successful treasure hunt and that he had brought back to South Africa ‘some wonderful stones from a visit to King Solomon’s Temple’, and he arranged to buy one from Posselt, the first stone bird known to have been looted from the lost city. Rhodes was undoubtedly mesmerised by the bird; indeed, it became a kind of talisman for him. It is still in the bedroom of his house, Groote Schuur, in Cape Town – now the home of the State President – where last year I was allowed to handle it for the purpose of photography. Alta Kriel, the Curator of the