The Bents’ second significant field of studies (after the Turkish littoral and the Aegean) was the African continent, beginning with a ‘tourist’ visit in early 1885 to Egypt, taking in such sine qua nons as the Pyramids. The great breakthrough for the celebrity explorers was a commission from Cecil Rhodes to investigate in 1891 the ruins of Great Zimbabwe (in today’s Zimbabwe), followed by adventures in Ethiopia (Aksum, 1893), and the Sudan (1896), generating an extensive corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material. Two best-selling monographs resulted from these expeditions to Africa: The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1892) and The Sacred City of the Ethiopians (1893).
Bent’s writings on Africa (today’s boundaries) by year of publication:
- The Ruins in South Central Africa (anonymous, with the presumed collaboration of J.T. Bent) Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, And Arts, No. 377, Vol. VIII, Saturday, March 21, 1891, pp 177-178.
- “On Matabele and Mashona Lands”, E.A. Maund’s presentation to the RGS on 24 November 1890 and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, n.s. v.13 (1891), pp. 1-21. (In which Bent gives his first thoughts on the ruins of Great Zimbabwe as being of Persian (Sassanian) origin.)
1892
- ‘Among the Chiefs of the Bechuanaland’. The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 57 (51) (May), 642-54. [Reprinted in Littell’sLiving Age, Vol. 194 (1892), 37ff]
- ‘Mashonaland and its Inhabitants’. The New Review, Vol. 6 (May), 580-92. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 194 (1892), 44ff]
- ‘On the Ruins of Mashonaland’. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting 1892, Vol. 62, 538-45.
- ‘The Geography of the Zimbabwe Ruins in Mashonaland’. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting 1892, Vol. 62, 816.
- ‘The present inhabitants of Mashonaland, and their origin’. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the Annual Meeting 1892, Vol. 62, 900-1.
- ‘The Road from Mashonaland’. The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 57 (51) (Feb), 182-93. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 193 (1892), 160ff]
- ‘The Ruins of Mashonaland, and Explorations in the Country’. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, Vol. 14 (5) (May), 273-98.
- “The ruined cities of Mashonaland; being a record of excavation and exploration in 1891”. London, Longmans, Green and Co.
- ‘The Geography of the Zimbabwe Ruins in Mashonaland’. The Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, Vol. 7-8, 295-300.
- “The Discoveries at Great Zimbabwe”. The Graphic, 27 February 1892, 267.
- “Pre-Mahomedan Relics – Excavations at the Great Zimbabwe”. Black & White, 2 April, 430.
- “Some remarkable remains at Zimbabwe” (A paper read at the meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Thursday, May 12, 1892). Published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London(ser.2 v.14 1891/93, pp.165-169).
1893
- ‘From the Heart of Abyssinia’. Illustrated London News, 8 April 1893.
- ‘In the North of Abyssinia’. Illustrated London News, 6 May 1893.
- ‘Mashonaland and its People’. Contemporary Review, Vol. 64 (Jul/Dec), 642-53. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 199 (1893), 749ff]
- ‘On the Finds at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins: With a View to Elucidating the Origin of the Race that Built Them’. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 22, 124-36.
- ‘On the Origin of the Mashonaland Ruins’. The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 34 (Dec), 991-7.
- ‘The Ancient Trade Route across Ethiopia’. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 2 (2) (Aug), 140-6.
- ‘The Ruins in Mashonaland’. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 2 (5) (Nov), 438-41.
- ‘The Tribes of Mashonaland and Their Origin’. Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol. 8, 534-39.
- “The sacred city of the Ethiopians : being a record of travel and research in Abyssinia in 1893”. London, Longmans, Green and Co.
1896
- ‘A Visit to the Northern Sudan’. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 8 (4) (Oct), 335-53.
- ‘On the Dervish Frontier’. The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 40 (236) (Oct), 580-95. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 211 (1896), 523ff]
- ‘Italy. The Italians in Africa’. The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 66 (60) (Sept), 363-72. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 211 (1896), 67ff]
- ‘The Slave-Trade on the West Coast of the Red Sea’, The Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines’ Friend, May-July 1896, 163.
For a consolidated Bent bibliography click here.