Sunset Wall at Machemma

Hidden amongst thorny bushes and shrubs on a koppie next to the Sand River is Machemma. Difficult to get to and unknown, even to most of its neighbors, it has been lying north of the Zoutpansberg unused for hundreds of years. Nobody really knows what it is or what it was used for. What we do know is that many centuries ago, just after the fall of the Mapungubwe kingdom, someone put a lot of effort into building the complex. Besides the walls that were built around it, special care was taken in building what I call the "Sunset Wall". Black and cream coloured stones were carried over a long distance and up the slopes of the koppie to be used in this wall.

Symbols on the Sunset Wall

Take a look at some pictures on my Panoramio account:

The main feature of the complex is the Sunset Wall which faces westward and dominates the top of the koppie. Winter Corner which is the southern end of the wall is still reasonably well preserved. One could extrapolate the pattern from there towards the summer corner in order to get an idea of what the whole wall must have looked like.

Closer inspection of the wall revealed some discoveries of which the following looked the most interesting:


Symbols at predetermined spacing on the wall.

Line running along the whole lenght of the wall.

Wave-like pattern along the bottom of the wall, mostly covered with debris that have fallen down.

Square dots that can be found at specific intervals along the wall.

Distance between the corner and the last dot is half of the distance to the next dot along the wall.

Apparently professor Vale and some of his archaeological students from the University of Pretoria did some research on the site - if you know anything more about this please contact coenraad@camelthorngiants.co.za