The Voortrekker Monument is located just south of Pretoria in South Africa. The granite structure is located on a hilltop, and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony between 1835 and 1854. It was designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk.
Wounded Voortrekker at Vegkop, detail of the historical frieze
The idea to build a monument in honour of the Voortrekkers was first discussed on 16 December 1888, when PresidentPaul Kruger of the South African Republic attended the Day of the Covenant celebrations at Danskraal in Natal. However, the movement to actually build such a monument only started on 4 April 1931 when the Sentrale Volksmonumentekomitee (SVK; Central People's Monuments Committee) was formed to bring this idea to fruition.[2]:13
Construction started on 13 July 1937 with a sod-turning ceremony performed by the chairman of the SVK, Advocate Ernest George Jansen, on what later became known as Monument Hill. On 16 December 1938 the cornerstone was laid[2]:13 by three descendants of some of the Voortrekker leaders: Mrs. J.C. Muller (granddaughter of Andries Pretorius), Mrs. K.F. Ackerman (great-granddaughter of Hendrik Potgieter) and Mrs. J.C. Preller (great-granddaughter of Piet Retief).
The monument was inaugurated on 16 December 1949 by Prime Minister D. F. Malan.[citation needed] The total construction cost of the monument was about £ 360,000, most of which was contributed by the South African government.
A large amphitheatre, which could seat approximately 20,000 people, was erected to the north-east of the monument in 1949.
Main features
The Voortrekker Monument is 40 metres high, with a base of 40 metres by 40 metres.[citation needed] The building shares architectural resemblance with European monuments such the Dôme des Invalides in France and the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Germany but also contains African influences.[3] The two main points of interest inside the building are the Historical Frieze and the Cenotaph.
South window and frieze
Historical Frieze
The main entrance of the building leads into the domed Hall of Heroes. This massive space, flanked by four huge arched windows made from yellow Belgian glass, contains the unique marble Historical Frieze which is an intrinsic part of the design of the monument. It is the biggest marble frieze in the world.[4] The frieze consists of 27 bas-relief panels depicting the history of the Great Trek, but incorporating references to every day life, work methods and religious beliefs of the Voortrekkers. The set of panels illustrates key historical scenes starting from the first voortrekkers of 1835, up to the signing of the Sand River Convention in 1852. In the centre of the floor of the Hall of Heroes is a large circular opening through which the Cenotaph in the Cenotaph Hall can be viewed.
The Cenotaph
Cenotaph
The Cenotaph, situated in the centre of the Cenotaph Hall, is the central focus of the monument. In addition to being viewable from the Hall of Heroes it can also be seen from the dome at the top of the building, from where much of the interior of the monument can be viewed. Through an opening in this dome a ray of sunlight shines at twelve o'clock on 16 December annually, falling onto the centre of the Cenotaph, striking the words 'Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika' (Afrikaans for 'We're for you, South Africa'), a line from 'Die Stem van Suid-Afrika'. The ray of light symbolises God's blessing on the lives and endeavours of the Voortrekkers. 16 December 1838 was the date of the Battle of Blood River, commemorated in South Africa before 1994 as the Day of the Vow.
The Cenotaph Hall is decorated with the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics and contains wall tapestries depicting the Voortrekkers as well as several display cases with artefacts from the Great Trek. Against the northern wall of the hall is a niche with a lantern in which a flame has been kept burning ever since 1938. It was in that year that the Symbolic Ox Wagon Trek, which started in Cape Town and ended at Monument Hill where the Monument's foundation stone was laid, took place.
The wagon laager wall features 64 wagons
Other features
Visitors to the monument enter through a black wrought iron gate with an assegai (spear) motif.
After passing through the gate one finds oneself inside a big laager consisting of 64 ox-wagons made out of decorative granite.[2]:15 The same number of wagons were used at the Battle of Blood River to form the laager.[citation needed]
At the foot of the monument stands Anton van Wouw's bronze sculpture of a Voortrekker woman and her two children, paying homage to the strength and courage of the Voortrekker women.[2]:15 On both sides of this sculpture black wildebeest are chiselled into the walls of the monument. The wildebeest symbolically depicts the dangers of Africa and their symbolic flight implies that the woman, carrier of Western civilisation, is triumphant.
On each outside corner of the monument there is a statue, respectively representing Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, Hendrik Potgieter and an "unknown" leader (representative of all the other Voortrekker leaders).[2]:15 Each statue weighs approximately 6 tons.[citation needed]
At the eastern corner of the monument, on the same level as its entrance, is the foundation stone.
Under the foundation stone is buried:
A copy of the Trekker Vow on 16 December 1838.
A copy of the anthem "Die Stem".
A copy of the land deal between the Trekkers under Piet Retief and the Zulus under king Dingane.
German links
According to Alta Steenkamp, the masonic subtext of the Monument to the Battle of the Nations (Völkerschlachtdenkmal) in Leipzig, Germany, is reflected in the Voortrekker Monument because the architect, Gerard Moerdijk, had used the geometric order and spatial proportions of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.[5] This Germanisation of the Voortrekker Monument occurred after Moerdijk's initial design had caused a public outcry in the South African press for its resemblance to an Egyptian temple.[6]:128 In Moerdijk's initial design, the monument consisted of a causeway linking two Egyptian obelisks.[5][6]:128
Finalising his design of the Voortrekker Monument, Moerdijk visited Egypt in 1936, including the Karnak Temple Complex in Thebes.[6]:105 In Thebes, the pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband, had erected three sun sanctuaries, including the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben'). The most prominent aspect of Moerdijk's monument is the annual mid noon sun illumination of the Benben stone, the encrypted cenotaph.
The cenotaph is the symbolic tomb of Piet Retief and his delegation.
In the years preceding World War II, several Afrikaner nationalists travelled to Germany for academic, political and cultural studies. In 1928 Moerdijk visited Germany, and viewed the Amarna bust of Nefertiti on public display in Berlin. By 1934 Chancellor Hitler had decided that Germany would not return the Amarna bust of Nefertiti to Egypt. He instead announced the intention to use the Amarna bust as the central show piece of the thousand years Third Reich, in a revitalised Berlin to be renamed Germania.[7] Likewise Moerdijk's thousand years monument with Amarna sun symbol at its centre, became Afrikaner nationalists' centre show piece of their capital Pretoria.
Round floor opening
Looking from the sky dome downwards, 32 sun rays can be counted, reflecting the masonic influence of the architecture
Looking from the sky dome downwards, a chevron pattern on the floor of the Hall of Heroes, radiates outwards like 32 sun rays. In Moerdijk's architecture, the natural sun forms the 33rd ray through the floor opening. Moerdijk said the chevron pattern on the floor depicts water,[8] as does the double chevronhieroglyph from the civilisation of ancient Egypt. Moerdijk stated that all roads on the terrain of building art lead back to ancient Egypt.[6]:47 Based on Moerdijk's reference to the watery floor of the Hall of Heroes, as well as his statements about ancient Egypt, the floor opening may be identified with the watery abyss, as in the creation theology of ancient African civilisation. Rising out of this watery abyss, was the primeval mound, the Benben stone, to symbolise a new creation.
Religious sun ray
Gerard Moerdijk was the chief architect of 80 Protestant churches in South Africa. Moerdijk adhered to Reformed church tradition and thus his Renaissance trademark, the Greek-cross floorplan, always focused on the pulpit and preacher. In Protestant theology, the word of God is central.[6]:39,122 Moerdijk created a similar central focus in the Voortrekker Monument, but in vertical instead of horizontal plane, and in African instead of European style.
The monument's huge upper dome features Egyptian backlighting[6]:133 to simulate the sky, the heavenly abode of God. Through the dome a sun ray penetrates downwards, highlighting words on 16 December at noon.
The sky oriented words: "US FOR YOU SOUTH AFRICA", are Moerdijk's focus point. These words are taken from an anthem, Die Stem: "We will live, we will die, we for thee South-Africa". The same anthem ends: "It will be well, God reigns."
Thus the sun ray simulates a connection between the words on the Cenotaph and the heavenly abode above, a communication between God and man.
The actual sun ray itself forms a 33rd sun ray shining onto the stone in the midst of floor opening.
Heavenly vow
In Moerdijk's biblical theology, God communicates in two ways: through scripture and nature.[9] Moerdijk merges both methods, by using the sun in his simulation.
Relief of an ox-wagon on the laager wall
The Vow of the Trekkers was commemorated on 16 December as the Day of the Vow. On 16 December, the appearance of an illuminating sun disc on the wording of the Cenotaph stone, transform their meaning as per the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists.
Instead of man below making an earthly vow, the sun shifts the focus upwards to the trinitarian god of the Trekkers, as it is God who communicates through Moerdijk's sun architecture, making Himself a heavenly vow with the words: WE – as in GOD – FOR THEE SOUTH-AFRICA.
Thus God in the trinitarian tradition of the Trekkers, speaks a vow within the sun disc illuminating the words on the Cenotaph.
The Trekker belief that God was for South Africa originates from the 9–16 December 1838 vow of Trekker leader Andries Pretorius at Blood River, who at around the same time made military and political alliances with Christian Zulus like prince Mpande.
Egyptian origin
Moerdijk was an outspoken supporter of ancient Egyptian architecture.[10]
Moerdijk referred to Africa's greatness as imparted by ancient Egyptian constructions at the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument.[8]
Before his Voortrekker Monument proposal was accepted, Moerdijk and Anton van Wouw had been working in alliance for many years on their "dream castle" project:[11] a modern African-Egyptian Voortrekker Temple in South-Africa. Van Wouw and Frans Soff had earlier employed the Egyptian obelisk, a petrified ray of the African Aten, as central motif for the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, itself likewise inaugurated on the Day of the Vow, 16 December 1913.
Whilst finalising the design of the Voortrekker Monument in 1936,[6]:105 Moerdijk went on a research trip to Egypt. There he visited the Karnak Temple Complex at Thebes,[6]:106 where an African Renaissance had flourished under PharaohAkhenaten, Nefertiti's husband.
The open air temples of Akhenaten to the Aten incorporated the Heliopolitan tradition of employing sun rays in architecture, as well as realistic wall reliefs or friezes.
Moerdijk's wife Sylva related that he was intimately acquainted with ancient Egyptian architecture,[6]:106 and was strongly influenced architecturally by his visit to Egypt.[6]:105
Architectural purpose
Looking upwards at mid noon on 16 December reveals a dot within a circle, the ancient African-Egyptian hieroglyph for the monotheistic creator god AtenLooking downwards from the dome
The architect, Gerard Moerdijk, stated that the purpose of a building had to be clearly visible.[6]:133 The aspect of the sun at mid-noon in Africa, was during Nefertiti's time known as Aten. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, Aten was written as a sun dot enclosed by a circle.
The Aten-hieroglyph is depicted in the Voortrekker Monument when the sun shines through an aperture in the top dome.
Likewise, looking downwards from the top dome walkway, the round floor opening is seen to encircle the sun disc illumination.
Moerdijk's message as implied by the wall frieze: by exodus out of the British Cape Colony, God created a new civilisation inland.
In order to give thanks to this new creation of civilisation, Moerdijk, recalling Abraham of old, outwardly designed the Voortrekker Monument as an altar.[6]:130
Monument complex
In the years following its construction, the monument complex was expanded several times and now includes:
An indigenous garden that surrounds the monument.The Wall of Remembrance dedicated to those who died while serving in the South African Defence Force (SADF).
A Wall of Remembrance that was constructed near the monument in 2009. It was built to commemorate the members of the South African Defence Force (SADF) who died in service of their country between 1961 and 1994.
An Afrikaner heritage centre, which was built in order to preserve the heritage of the Afrikaans-speaking portion of South Africa's population and their contribution to the history of the country.
Aten also Aton, Atonu, or Itn was the focus of Atenism, the religious system formally established in ancient Egypt by the late Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. Exact dating for the 18th dynasty is contested, though a general date range places the dynasty in the years 1550 to 1292 B.C.E. The worship of Aten and the coinciding rule of Akhenaten are major identifying characteristics of a period within the 18th dynasty referred to as the Amarna Period.
Amarna is an extensive ancient Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city during the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city of Akhetaten was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and abandoned shortly after his death in 1332 BC. The name that the ancient Egyptians used for the city is transliterated as Akhetaten or Akhetaton, meaning "the horizon of the Aten".
Akhenaten, also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning c. 1353–1336 or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV.
Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. After her husband's death, some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as the female king known by the throne name, Neferneferuaten and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as Pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.
The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
Meritaten, also spelled Merytaten, Meritaton or Meryetaten, was an ancient Egyptian royal woman of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Her name means "She who is beloved of Aten"; Aten being the sun-deity whom her father, Pharaoh Akhenaten, worshipped. She held several titles, performing official roles for her father and becoming the Great Royal Wife to Pharaoh Smenkhkare, who may have been a brother or son of Akhenaten. Meritaten also may have served as pharaoh in her own right under the name Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten.
The Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) or simply the Broederbond was an exclusively Afrikaner Calvinist and male secret society in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of the Afrikaner people. It was founded by H. J. Klopper, H. W. van der Merwe, D. H. C. du Plessis and the Rev. Jozua Naudé in 1918 as Jong Zuid Afrika until 1920, when it was renamed the Broederbond. Its influence within South African political and social life came to a climax with the 1948-1994 rule of the white supremacist National Party and its policy of apartheid, which was largely developed and implemented by Broederbond members. Between 1948 and 1994, many prominent figures of Afrikaner political, cultural, and religious life, including every leader of the South African government, were members of the Afrikaner Broederbond.
Atenism, also known as the Aten religion, the Amarna religion, and the Amarna heresy, was a religion in ancient Egypt. It was founded by Akhenaten, a pharaoh who ruled the New Kingdom under the Eighteenth Dynasty. The religion is described as monotheistic or monolatristic, although some Egyptologists argue that it was actually henotheistic. Atenism was centred on the cult of Aten, a god depicted as the disc of the Sun. Aten was originally an aspect of Ra, Egypt's traditional solar deity, though he was later asserted by Akhenaten as being the superior of all deities. In the 14th century BC, Atenism was Egypt's state religion for around 20 years, and Akhenaten met the worship of other gods with persecution; he closed many traditional temples, instead commissioning the construction of Atenist temples, and also suppressed religious traditionalists. However, subsequent pharaohs toppled the movement in the aftermath of Akhenaten's death, thereby restoring Egyptian civilization's traditional polytheistic religion. Large-scale efforts were then undertaken to remove from Egypt and Egyptian records any presence or mention of Akhenaten, Atenist temples, and assertions of a uniquely supreme god.
The Temple of Amenhotep IV was an ancient monument at Karnak in Luxor, Egypt. The structures were used during the New Kingdom, in the first four years of the 18th Dynasty reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, when he still used the name Amenhotep IV. The edifices may have been constructed at the end of the reign of his father, Amenhotep III, and completed by Akhenaten.
Amarna art, or the Amarna style, is a style adopted in the Amarna Period during and just after the reign of Akhenaten in the late Eighteenth Dynasty, during the New Kingdom. Whereas Ancient Egyptian art was famously slow to change, the Amarna style was a significant and sudden break from its predecessors both in the style of depictions, especially of people, and the subject matter. The artistic shift appears to be related to the king's religious reforms centering on the monotheistic or monolatric worship of the Aten, the disc of the Sun, as giver of life.
Anton van Wouw was a Dutch-born South African sculptor regarded as the father of South African sculpture.
The Great Temple of the Aten was a temple located in the city of el-Amarna, Egypt. It served as the main place of worship of the deity Aten during the reign of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. Akhenaten ushered in a unique period of ancient Egyptian history by establishing the new religious cult dedicated to the sun-disk Aten, originally an aspect of Ra, the sun god in traditional ancient Egyptian religion. The king shut down traditional worship of other deities like Amun-Ra, and brought in a new era, though short-lived, of seeming monotheism where the Aten was worshipped as a sun god and Akhenaten and his wife, Nefertiti, represented the divinely royal couple that connected the people with the god. Although he began construction at Karnak during his rule, the association the city had with other gods drove Akhenaten to establish a new city and capital at Amarna for the Aten. Akhenaten built the city along the east bank of the Nile River, setting up workshops, palaces, suburbs and temples. The Great Temple of the Aten was located just north of the Central City and, as the largest temple dedicated to the Aten, was where Akhenaten fully established the proper cult and worship of the sun-disk.
The Voortrekkers is an Afrikaner youth organisation, founded in South Africa in 1931, for Afrikaans boys and girls. It tries to develop resilience, service, leadership and a good character through team meetings, skills development and camping in nature, with the opportunity for whole families to get involved. The movement, which also took off in Namibia, is based on Christian national principles.
Gerard Leendert Pieter Moerdijk, also known as Gerard Moerdyk, was a South African architect best known for designing the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.
The Day of the Vow is a religious public holiday in South Africa. It is an important day for Afrikaners, originating from the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838, before which about 400 Voortrekkers made a promise to God that if He rescued them out of the hands of the approximately 20,000 Zulu warriors they were facing, they would honour that day as a sabbath day in remembrance of what God did for them.
The National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is a monument commemorating the roughly 27,000 Boer women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Second Boer War. The Monument is a Provincial Heritage Site in the Free State.
Amarna Tomb 3 is a rock-cut cliff tomb located in Amarna, Upper Egypt. The tomb belonged to the Ancient Egyptian noble Ahmes (Ahmose), who served during the reign of Akhenaten. The tomb is situated at the base of a steep cliff and mountain track at the north-eastern end of the Amarna plains. It is located in the northern side of the wadi that splits the cluster of graves known collectively as the Northern tombs. Amarna Tomb 3 is one of six elite tombs belonging to the officials of Akhenaten. It was one of the first Northern tombs, built in Year 9 of the reign of Akhenaten.
Hoërskool Voortrekker is a public Afrikaans medium co-educational high school situated in the municipality of Boksburg in the city of Ekurhuleni in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The academic school was established in 1920.
The Amarna Era includes the reigns of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun and Ay. The period is named after the capital city established by Akhenaten, son of Amenhotep III. Akhenaten started his reign as Amenhotep IV, but changed his name when he discarded all other religions and declared the Aten or sun disc as the only god. He closed all the temples of the other Gods and removed their names from the monuments. Smenkhkare, then Tutankhamun, succeeded Akhenaten. Discarding Akhenten's religious beliefs, Tutankhamun returned to the traditional gods. He died young and was succeeded by Ay. Many kings did their best to remove all traces of the period from the records. The Amarna art is very distinctive: the royal family was portrayed with extended heads, long necks and narrow chests. They had skinny limbs, but heavy hips and thighs, with a marked stomach.
The Statue of Paul Kruger is a bronze sculpture located in Church Square in Pretoria, South Africa. The statue depicts Paul Kruger, the Boer political and military leader and President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900, and four unnamed Boer soldiers. The Statue of Paul Kruger was sculpted in 1896 and was installed in its current location in Church Square in 1954.
↑ Grundlingh, Albert (2009). "A Cultural Conundrum? Old Monuments and New Regimes: The Voortrekker Monument as Symbol of Afrikaner Power in a Postapartheid South Africa". In Walkowitz, Daniel J.; Knauer, Lisa Maya (eds.). Contested Histories in Public Space: Memory, Race, and Nation. New York: Duke University Press. p.159. ISBN978-0-8223-4217-5.
1 2 Steenkamp, Alta (2009). "A Shared Spatial Symbolism: The Voortrekker Monument, the Völkerslachtdenkmal and Freemasonry". South African Journal of Art History (SAJAH). 24 (1): 150–160. hdl:2263/13998.
↑ Marschall, Sabine (2001). "The Search for Essence: 'Africanness' in 20th Century South African Architecture". Southern African Humanities. 13: 139–154. hdl:10520/EJC84722.
↑ Duffey, A. E. (2006). "'n Egte Lugkasteel: Moerdijk, Van Wouw en die Voortrekkermonument". South African Journal of Cultural History (in Afrikaans). 20 (2): 22–41. hdl:10520/EJC30675.
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