368 Shotoku Taishi In the ninth century the Shona built the stone buildings of Great Zimbabwe, with towers that may have been used for keeping watch the Acropolis by some historians and was the center of royal events in the whole site Although it has a number of enclosures, they were probably for animals rather than for protection Archaeologists have been able to show that it was built in a number of stages, and modified at different times Some of the buildings collapsed, and the site was then leveled before new building work was started The eastern section is known as the “ritual enclosure” and is connected with ceremonies involving Shona chiefs Large statues of carved soapstone birds looked over the site but were removed long ago There is also some evidence of gold smelting in one section nearby There are various theories for the small towers, with some scholars suggesting religious purposes, and others that they provided lookout positions The most famous part of Great Zimbabwe is the Great Enclosure, which is one of the most regularly photographed parts of the entire area, appearing regularly in books and on Rhodesian and Zimbabwe postage stamps Nearly 255 meters in circumference and 100 meters across, it remains the largest surviving ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa Scholars have long surmised it was a royal compound where the king’s mother and his main wives would reside There was a belief that the large conical tower on the site held treasure, and it was marked on some plans as being the site of the royal treasury Many people have dug in the hope of finding gold, but it is also believed that it was the grain store for the king The Valley Enclosures date from the 13th century and have yielded the largest amount of archaeological finds There was much speculation on whether the Shona actually built the enclosures at Great Zimbabwe, with some writers surmising that they were Arab, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Greek, Jewish, or Phoenician in origins Some have sought to link them to the queen of Sheba or the legendary Prester John Others have seen connections with the famed King Solomon’s mines However not a single archaeological link connects the ruins with any of these Some Chinese porcelain, Persian crockery, and beads and a few trinkets from India were found, indicating that the people at Great Zimbabwe traded, probably through intermediaries such as the Arabs, with peoples in the Indian Ocean The first Caucasian to see Great Zimbabwe was Adam Renders, an American sailor, who arrived in the area in 1867 He married the daughter of an African chief and remained nearby until his death in 1881 The first to write an account of the ruins was Carl Mauch, a German who came to Great Zimbabwe in September 1871 Subsequent travelers started taking pieces of the ruin away with them British archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson spent three years working at the site in the 1930s and concluded that they were Bantu in style, and part of the legendary Shona civilization Great Zimbabwe remains the second most important tourist site in Zimbabwe, after Victoria Falls In recent years Shona culture and customs has been revived with an interest in Shona wood and stone carving, and music See also Bantu Further reading: Bourdillon, M F C The Shona Peoples: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Shona, with Special Reference to their Religion Gwelo, Rhodesia: Mambo Press, 1976; Kileff, Clive and Peggy Shona Customs: Essays by African Writers Gwelo, Rhodesia: Mambo Press, 1970 Justin Corfield Shotoku Taishi (574–622) Japanese political leader Prince Shotoku Taishi was crown prince and regent of Japan between 592 and 622 His rule opened an era of great reforms that advanced Buddhism and Chinese political and cultural influence in Japan For his role he is called the Great Civilizer Up to the sixth century Chinese cultural influence had grown gradually in Japan After the mid-sixth century the process quickened One reason was the gradual