The Mystery of the African 'Stonehenge' - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 12-17-2002, 01:55 AM

By Cathryn Conroy, Netscape News Editor

What ARE these mysterious ruins in Zimbabwe that include a crumbling ring of stone walls and platforms about 240 meters in length? They have long been thought to be the remains of an ancient palace, but a South African scientist has a new idea: The ruins are an African "Stonehenge" that once served as an astronomical observatory to track eclipses, solstices, and an elusive exploding star, reports CNN.

The walls of the ruins, called Great Zimbabwe, are arranged in such a way that Richard Wade of South Africa's Nkwe Ridge Observatory is convinced the enclosure was used much like Great Britain's Stonehenge. "The importance of Great Zimbabwe is that it was the capital of the only known sub-Saharan African Empire that lasted almost 1,000 years. Everyone in southern Africa somehow relates to this nucleus cultural complex," Wade told CNN.

Here is Wade's evidence that Great Zimbabwe was an astronomical site:

•Several of the stone monoliths line up with specific bright stars in the constellation Orion as they rise on the morning of the shortest day of the year, which is the winter solstice.

•One of the monoliths contains markings that coincide with orbital patterns of Earth and Venus. This monolith could have been used to forecast eclipses.

•The specific purpose of a special tower in the complex has long baffled historians. Wade thinks it was constructed to observe an exploding star in about 1300 AD. "This large conical tower in the great enclosure stands directly in line with the rising supernova remnant when seen from the observation platform and court area of the time," Wade wrote in a paper that he will submit to the journals Science and Scientific American. Oral legends passed on to this day give the supernova some credence. Wade told CNN that the Sena people of Zimbabwe hold that their ancestors migrated from the north by following an unusually bright star in the southern skies.