Origins
The famous soapstone bird carvings stood on walls and monoliths of the ancient city of Great Zimbabwe built starting in the 11th century and continuing for over 300 years by ancestors of the Shona. The ruins, which gave their name to modern Zimbabwe, cover some 1,800 acres (7.3 km²) and are the largest ancient stone construction in Zimbabwe.
When the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were discovered by modern civilization in the late nineteenth century, five of the carved birds they found were taken to South Africa by Cecil Rhodes. Four of the statues were given to Zimbabwe by the South African government at independence, while the fifth remains at Groote Schuur, Rhodes' former home in Cape Town.
Read more about this topic: Zimbabwe Bird
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)