Great Zimbabwe National Monument
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Coordinates: 20°16′23″S 30°56′04″E / 20.273063°S 30.934344°E
| Zimbabwe National Monument* | |
|---|---|
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
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| State Party |  Zimbabwe |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | |
| Reference | 364 |
| Region** | Africa |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 1986 (10th Session) |
| * Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. ** Region as classified by UNESCO. |
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The Great Zimbabwe, or "stone buildings", is the name given to the stone ruins spread out over a 722 hectare (1,784 acre) area within the modern-day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins. It is near the town of Masvingo, which before majority rule was called Fort Victoria. The word "Great" distinguishes the site from the many hundred small ruins, known as Zimbabwes, spread across the Zimbabwe highveld.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Name
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The word "Zimbabwe" is probably a short form for "ziimba remabwe" or "ziimba rebwe", a Shona (dialect: ChiKaranga) term, which means "the great or big house built of stone boulders". In the ChiKaranga dialect of the Shona language, "imba" means "a house" or "a building" and "ziimba", or "zimba", means "a huge/big building or house". The word "bwe" or "ibwe" (singular, plural being "mabwe") in the ChiKaranga dialect means "a stone boulder". The ChiKaranga-speaking Shona people are found around Great Zimbabwe in the modern–day province of Masvingo and have been known to have inhabited the region since the building of this ancient city
A second theory is that Zimbabwe is a contracted form of "dzimba woye" which means "venerated houses" in the Zezuru dialect of the Shona language. This term is usually reserved for chiefs' houses or graves. It should also be noted that the ChiZezuru-speaking Shona people are found to the northeast of Great Zimbabwe, some 500 km away.
[edit] Description
Construction starting in the 11th century and continuing for over 300 years[2], the ruins at Great Zimbabwe are some of the oldest and largest structures located in Southern Africa. At its peak, estimates are that the ruins of Great Zimbabwe had as many as 25,000 inhabitants. The ruins that survive are built entirely of stone. The ruins span 1,800 acres (7 km²) and cover a radius of 100 to 200 miles (160 to 320 km).
In young fellow, Vicente Pegado, Captain of the Portuguese Garrison of Sofala, described Zimbabwe thus:
| “ | Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers there is a fortress built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them.... This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar, and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms [22 m] high. The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies court. | ” |
The ruins can be broken down into three distinct architectural groups. They are known as the Hill Complex, the Valley Complex and the Great Enclosure. The Hill Complex was used as a temple, the Valley complex was for the citizens, and the Great Enclosure was used by the king. Over 300 structures have been found so far in the Great Enclosure. The type of stone structures found on the site give an indication of the status of the citizenry. Structures that were more elaborate were probably built for the kings and situated further away from the center of the city. It is thought that this was done in order to escape sleeping sickness.
What little evidence exists suggests that Great Zimbabwe also became a center for trading, with artifacts suggesting that the city formed part of a trade network extending as far as China. Chinese pottery shards, coins from Arabia, glass beads and other non-local items have been excavated at Zimbabwe.
The site was not abandoned but rather the court of the king moved further north as his empire declined in order to gain more direct access to trade revenues. The Great Zimbabwe was left in the care of a local tribe.
[edit] History of research
Portuguese traders were the first Europeans to visit the remains of the ancient city in the early 16th century. The ruins were rediscovered during a hunting trip by Adam Renders in 1867, who then showed the ruins to Karl Mauch in 1871. They became well known to English readers from J. Theodore Bent's season at Zimbabwe, under Cecil Rhodes's patronage.
Bent, whose archaeological experience had all been in Greece and Asia Minor, stated in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1891) that the ruins revealed either the Phoenicians or the Arabs as builders. Mauch favored a legend that the structures were built to replicate the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem.[3] Other theories as to their origin abounded among white settlers and academics, with one element in common: they were probably not made by sub-Saharan Africans.
The first scientific archaeological excavations at the site were undertaken in by David Randall-MacIver in 1905–1906. He wrote in Medieval Rhodesia of the existence in the site of objects that were of African origin.[4] In 1929, Gertrude Caton-Thompson was the first to conclusively state that the site was indeed created by Africans.[5] Since then artifacts and radiocarbon dating indicate that the oldest remains date back to the 1200s.
Martin Hall writes that the history of Iron Age research south of the Zambezi shows the prevalent influence of colonial ideologies, both in the earliest speculations about the nature of the African past and in the adaptations that have been made to contemporary archeological methodologies.[6] When European colonialists like Cecil Rhodes first saw the ruins, it was seen as a sign of the great riches that the surroundings would yield to its new masters. When it was finally proved that the builders were in fact Africans, it was also characterized as "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Later researchers confirmed this condescending view and refused to accept that Great Zimbabwe could have been a product of internal processes, but rather had to be the result of outside stimulus. After the white minority attempt at gaining independence from colonial rule in 1965 the theories about the black population having been subjugated by outside overlords was reconfirmed. Later on, after the independence of the modern state of Zimbabwe in 1980, Great Zimbabwe has been employed to mirror and legimitize shifting policies of the ruling regime. At first it was argued that it represented a form of pre-colonial "African socialism" and later the focus shifted to stressing the natural evolution of an accumulation of wealth and power within a ruling elite.[7]
Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages. Some have postulated that Zimbabwe was the work of the Gokomere people, who gave rise to both the Warozwi people, and the Mashona people. Great Zimbabwe and various stone cities in east Africa are also claimed by the Lemba, an ethnic group who claim ancient Jewish descent. Great Zimbabwe is often cited in their totem recitation passed on to generations through oral traditions providing a strong indication of the claim. The Lemba are also the only group who has claimed to be the descendants of the builders who also share similar burial customs to those once practiced in Great Zimbabwe. Modern DNA testing has also substantiated their claims of an ancient Semitic origin.[8]
The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across almost 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) 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 (11 m) extending approximately 820 feet (250 m), making it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert. Investigations were conducted during the first few decades of the twentieth century which confirmed both the antiquity of the Great Zimbabwe and its African origins.
Some researchers claim that the ruins may have housed an astronomy observatory.[9]
[edit] Political implications
Despite this evidence, the official line in colonial Rhodesia was that the structures were built by non-blacks. According to Paul Sinclair, interviewed for None But Ourselves:[10]
I was the archaeologist stationed at Great Zimbabwe. I was told by the then-director of the Museums and Monuments organization to be extremely careful about talking to the press about the origins of the [Great] Zimbabwe state. I was told that the museum service was in a difficult situation, that the government was pressurizing them to withhold the correct information. Censorship of guidebooks, museum displays, school textbooks, radio programes, newspapers and films was a daily occurrence. Once a member of the Museum Board of Trustees threatened me with losing my job if I said publicly that blacks had built Zimbabwe. He said it was okay to say the yellow people had built it, but I wasn't allowed to mention radio carbon dates... It was the first time since Germany in the thirties that archaeology has been so directly censored.
To black anti-colonialist groups, Great Zimbabwe became an important symbol of achievement by black Africans. Reclaiming its history was a major aim for those wanting independence. In 1980 the newly independent country was renamed for the site, and its famous soapstone bird carvings was retained from the Rhodesian flag and Coat of Arms as a national symbol and depicted in the new Zimbabwe flag.
Some of the carvings had been taken from Great Zimbabwe around 1890 and sold to Cecil Rhodes, who was intrigued and had copies made which he gave to friends. Most of the carvings have now been returned to Zimbabwe, but one remains at Rhodes' old home, Groote Schuur, in Cape Town.
Great Zimbabwe has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986.
[edit] Image gallery
 The mountain fortress |
 Vicinity, showing the lesser ruins |
Inside the main enclosure |
.jpg) The conical tower |
[edit] See also
- History of Zimbabwe
- Nyanga, Zimbabwe
- Ziwa
- Dhlo-Dhlo
- Khami
- List of World Heritage Sites in Africa
- Gertrude Caton–Thompson
[edit] Notes
- ^ M. Sibanda, H. Moyana et al. 1992. The African Heritage. History for yfgfjJunior Secondary Schools. Book 1. Zimbabwe Publishing House. ISBN 9780908300006
- ^ Great Zimbabwe (11th–15th century) | Thematic Essay | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- ^ "Vast Ruins in South Africa- The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland". The New York Times: p. 19. 1892-12-18.
- ^ "Solomon's Mines". The New York Times. 1906-04-14. pp. RB241.
- ^ "Ascribes Zimbabwe to African Bantus". The New York Times. 1929-10-20. p. 2.
- ^ Hall, Martin (July 1984). "The Burden of Tribalism: The Social Context of Southern African Iron Age Studies". American Antiquity 49 (3): 455–467. doi:.
- ^ Garlake (2002) 23-25
- ^ NOVA Online | Lost Tribes of Israel | The Lemba
- ^ Eclipse brings claim of medieval African observatory
- ^ Frederikse, Julie (1990) [1982]. "(1) Before the war". None But Ourselves. Biddy Partridge (photographer). Harare: Oral Traditions Association of Zimbabwe with Anvil Press. pp. 10–11. ISBN 0-7974-0961-0.
[edit] Sources
- Garlake, Peter (2002) Early Art and Architecture of Africa Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-284261-7
- Ndoro, Webber. "Great Zimbabwe" Scientific American (November 1997)
[edit] Further reading
- Garlake, Peter S. (1972). Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames & Hudson.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Great Zimbabwe National Monument |
- Chapter on Great Zimbabwe from "Ending Stereotypes for America"
- Great Zimbabwe entry on the UNESCO World Heritage site
- Pictures of Great Zimbabwe
- Ampim, Manu. "Great Zimbabwe: A History Almost Forgotten". Retrieved 18 April 2006.
- Tyson, Peter. "Mystery of Great Zimbabwe". Retrieved 18 April 2006.
- The Story of Africa: Great Zimbabwe — BBC World Service
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