Editing Great Zimbabwe (section)

===Karl Mauch and the Queen of Sheba===
The ruins were rediscovered by Europeans during a hunting trip in 1867 by [[Adam Render]], a German-American hunter, prospector and trader in southern Africa,<ref>{{cite book |last=Rosenthal |first=Eric |year=1966 |title=Southern African Dictionary of National Biography |location=London |publisher=Frederick Warne |page=308 |oclc=390499 }}</ref> who in 1871 showed the ruins to [[Karl Mauch]], a German explorer and geographer of Africa. Karl Mauch recorded the ruins and immediately speculated about a possible Biblical association with King [[Solomon]] and the [[Queen of Sheba]], an explanation which had been suggested by earlier writers such as the Portuguese João dos Santos. Mauch went so far as to favour a legend that the structures were built to replicate the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem,<ref>{{cite news |title=Vast Ruins in South Africa- The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=19 |date=18 December 1892}}</ref> and claimed a wooden lintel at the site must be [[Cedrus libani|Lebanese cedar]], brought by [[Phoenicians]].<ref>Pikirayi (2001) p9</ref> The Sheba legend, as promoted by Mauch, became so pervasive in the white settler community as to cause the later scholar [[James Theodore Bent]] to say, {{blockquote|The names of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba were on everybody's lips, and have become so distasteful to us that we never expect to hear them again without an involuntary shudder.<ref name="Tyson"/>}}