In 1871, Mauch arrived at the stone ruins now known as Great Zimbabwe, five years after discovering the first gold mines in the Transvaal. Mauch believed that the ruins were the remnants of the lost biblical city of Ophir, described as the origin of the gold given by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. He did not believe that the structures could have been built by a previous local population similar to those which inhabited the area at the time of his excavation, and so pressed ahead with his research. Further research on the site (including one of the first archaeological uses of aviation) illustrated that the structures did indeed have African origin.