anouk jurgens's List: Great Zimbabwe

• Great Zimbabwe reflect the culture of the Shona peoples, a Bantu speaking ethnic  group
• Earliest habitation of the site was around 400 AD. The site consists of a large main stone enclosure and many other structures built in and around it. Building probably occurred in three phases. Zimbabwe was occupied from the 13th to the 15th centuries by ancestors of the Shona.
• The wall of the great enclosure, pictured above, measures 244 meters in length, is 5 meters thick at its greatest point, and is 10 meters high. Interestingly, it is tapered so that it is narrowest at the top, suggesting fairly sophisticated architecture.
• Around 1000AD people began to build large stone buildings for their kings, positioning them away from land. Many believe this move may have occurred to escape the dangerous tsetse fly.
• It is also possible that Zimbabwe was a result of surplus wealth from the East African gold trade. External trade existed between Great Zimbabwe and Sofala on the southern coast of what is now Mozambique. Sofala was an important port where goods from India, China and the Islamic world were imported and then sent into the interior, which in turn exported products from inner Africa.

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• Located in the south central African nation of Zimbabwe are the ruins of  monuments and cities built of stone. These ruins extend a radius of 100 to 200  miles, a diameter almost as great as the entire nation of France. Believed to  have been built by southern Africans about 600-1,000 years ago, they are  evidence of a thriving culture in the heart of Africa. Up until recent years,  the ruins were believed by Western historians to be the remains of a "mysterious  white race" in the heart of Africa

• The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across almost 1,800  acres of present-day southeastern Zimbabwe. Begun during the eleventh century  A.D. by Bantu-speaking  ancestors of the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for more  than 300 years in a local style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves.  Neither the first nor the last of some 300 similar complexes located on the  Zimbabwean plateau, Great Zimbabwe is set apart by the terrific scale of its  structure. Its most formidable edifice, commonly referred to as the Great  Enclosure, has walls as high as 36 feet extending approximately 820 feet, making  it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert
• These walls were constructed from granite blocks gathered from the exposed rock  of the surrounding hills. Since this rock naturally splits into even slabs and  can be broken into portable sizes, it provided a convenient and readily  available building resource. All of Great Zimbabwe's walls were fitted without  the use of mortar by laying stones one on top of the other, each layer slightly  more recessed than the last to produce a stabilizing inward slope. Early  examples were coarsely fitted using rough blocks and incorporated features of  the landscape such as boulders into the walls. Over the years the technique was  refined, and later walls were fitted together closely and evenly over long,  serpentine courses to produce remarkably finished surfaces.
• Little is known about the Bantu-speaking people who built Great Zimbabwe or how  their society was organized. The ruling elite appears to have controlled wealth  through the management of cattle, which were the staple diet at Great Zimbabwe.  At its height, Great Zimbabwe is estimated to have had a population greater than  10,000, although the majority lived at some distance from the large stone  buildings. Only 200 to 300 members of the elite classes are thought to have  lived within Great Zimbabwe's massive edifices.
  
• The function of these stone walls, however, has often been misinterpreted. At  first glance, these massive nonsupportive walls appear purely defensive. But  scholars doubt they ever served a martial purpose and have argued instead that  cattle and people were valued above land, which was in any event too abundant to  be hoarded. The walls are thought to have been a symbolic show of authority,  designed to preserve the privacy of royal families and set them apart from and  above commoners. It is also important to note that the walls surrounded and  later adjoined huts made of daga (mud and thatch), linked with them to  form a series of courtyards. Daga was also used to form raised seats in  particularly significant courtyards, and was painted to enrich its artistic  effect

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  Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: 11th - 15th c. AD

  The plateau between the rivers Zambezi and Limpopo
• The earliest important trading centre is at Mapungubwe, on the bank of the Limpopo. The settlement is established by a cattle-herding people, whose increasing prosperity leads to the emergence of a sophisticated court and ruling elite.
• The buildings date from the 13th and 14th centuries, the peak of Great Zimbabwe's power.
• n the 15th century Great Zimbabwe is eclipsed by two other kingdoms, one to the south at Khami (near modern Bulawayo) and one to the north, near Mount Darwin. This latter kingdom is established by a ruler who is known as the Munhumutapa - a title adopted by all his successors.

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• The ruins cover nearly 1,800 acres and can be divided into three distinct architectural groupings known as the Hill Complex, the Valley Complex, and the Great Enclosure
• Great Zimbabwe may have had as many as 18,000 inhabitants.

• It finally came to an end following upheavals in South Africa's Transvaal and Natal regions - the mfecane (scattering) caused by Zulu chief Shaka's aggressive militarism.

• The word zimbabwe, the country's namesake, is a Shona (Bantu) word meaning “stone houses.”
• The Hill Complex, which was formerly called the Acropolis, is believed to have been the spiritual and religious centre of the city. It sits on a steep-sided hill that rises 262 feet (80
• It is the oldest part of the site; stratigraphic evidence shows that the first stones were laid there about the year 900. The builders incorporated natural granite boulders and rectangular blocks to form walls up to 20 feet (6 metres) thick and 36 feet (11 metres) high. Within the walls are the remains of daga houses.
• South of the Hill Complex lies the Great Enclosure, the largest single ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa.
• The purpose of the tower, 33 feet (10 metres) high and 16 feet (5 metres) in diameter, is unknown, but it may have been a symbolic grain bin or a phallus symbol.

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• e Great Enclosure was used by the king.

• Below the Hill Complex sits the most stunning of Great Zimbabwe's structures, the Great Enclosure, or Elliptical Building. Called Imbahuru, meaning "the house of the great woman" or "the great house,"

• c. 1430 to c. 1450 Nyatsimba Mututa, Mwenemutapa   c. 1450 to 1480 Matope Nyanhehwe Nebedza, Mwenemutapa   1480 Mavura Maobwe, Mwenemutapa   1480 to 1490 Mukombero Nyahuma, Mwenemutapa   1490 to 1494 Changamire, Mwenemutapa   1494 to c. 1530 Kakuyo Komunyaka, Mwenemutapa   c. 1530 to c. 1550 Neshangwe Munembire, Mwenemutapa   c. 1550 to 1560 Chivere Nyasoro, Mwenemutapa   1560 to 1589 Chisamharu Negomo Mupuzangutu, Mwenemutapa   1589 to 1623 Gatsi Rusere, Mwenemutapa   1623 to 1629 Nyambo Kapararidze, Mwenemutapa   1634 to 1698 Chimbganda Matombo, Mwenemutapa

• According to oral tradition, the first "mwene" was a warrior prince named Nyatsimba Mutota from a southern Shona kingdom sent to find new sources of salt in the north.^[2] Prince Mutota found his salt among the Tavara, a Shona subdivision, who were prominent elephant hunters. They were conquered,^[3] a capital was established 350km north of Great Zimbabwe at Mount Fura by the Zambezi.
• Mutota's successor, Matope, extended this new kingdom into a great empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean.^[3] The Mwenemutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. This expansion weakened the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota and his dynasty originated.^[3] Mwenemutapa Matope's armies overran the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda.^[3] By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region.^[3]

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• that is known as Zimbabwe today was ruled under the Mutapa Empire... known as Mwene Mutapa, Monomotapa or the Empire of Great Zimbabwe
• However, Portuguese settlers destroyed the trade and began a series of wars which left the empire near collapse in the early 17th century. In 1834, the Matabele people arrived while fleeing from the Zulu leader Shaka, making the area their new empire, Matabeleland.