The first whispered reports of a fabulouse stone palace in the heart of southern Africa began dribbling into the coastal trading ports of Mozambique in the 16th century. In his 1552 Da Asia the most complete chronicle of the Portuguese conquests, Joao de Barros wrote of "a square fortress, masonry within and without, built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them."

In the midst of a wooded savanna backed by bare granite hills stood a city of stone. Its beautifully coursed walls curved and undulated sinuously over the landscape, blending into the boulder-strewn terrain as if having arisen there naturally. Bearing no mortar, as de Barros had correctly heard, the walls nevertheless reached enormous height, standing as high as 32 feet over the surrounding savanna. Of fully 100 acres of these granite enclosures, not a single one was straight. The Great Enclosure -- the edifice's most impressive structure, the local Karanga called Mumbahuru, "the house of the great woman" -- Known anciently as the house of Ama, the Queen of the Heavens and God of Mass. It was identified by the circlar structures on the site. From our investigations on the ground at the site we came to the conclusion that the site was biblical Ophir. Read 1Ki:9:27; 1Ki:9:28; and 2Ch:8:18. It has been said that the site was built by the Queen of Sheba. However, according to our Lemba brothers our people built the place as a trading outpost. Which gold mines are still to this day being used by the British (who are identified as the people of Tarashish). Though, it was a young German named Carl Mauch, looking at the greatest pre-Portuguese ruins of sub-Saharan Africa, that made the statement that the site was built by Sheba.

From a lintel he cut some wood that he described as reddish scented, and very like the wood of his pencil. Therefore, he concluded, the wood must be cedar from Lebanon and must have been brought by Phoenicians. However, Mauch's description of the wood aptly characterizes the African sandalwood, a local hardwood that later visitors also found in the walls of the Great Enclosure. This tree was the almug tree which was brought from Ophir to Israel that Solomon use to make the house of Yahweh read 2Ch:9:10; 2Ch:9:11 and also 1Kings 10:12 say the same thing. .