Scientists just started studying the 1, 500-year-old site correctly past centuries.
Almost 20, 000 Shona members once animated the 1, 800-acre remains of Great Zimbabwe. Sub-Saharan Africa has numerous zimbabwes, or rock villages, but this a is by far the most famous. All that remains from the feudal money is its awe-inspiring, rocky skeleton. But, long after the Kingdom of Zimbabwe’s destruction in the 15th century, Great Zimbabwe’s reputation persists. Zimbabwe’s emblem is adorned with one of the stolen stone eagles that once adorned the area.
There are 10 million Shona people around the world today—and there is much to learn about their Bantu-speaking ancestors, who first settled Great Zimbabwe in the 4th century C. E. They farmed, mined iron, and kept animals, a cooking staple that also denoted social class.
During the 11th century, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe took over the area. Trade flourished. Two-fifths of the world’s collected metal came from the country during its 300-year course, reported Slate. Investors flocked below, leaving Chinese ceramics, Persian pottery, Arab glass, and Western clothing—all of which now live in a gallery among the ruins.
Great Zimbabwe’s Great Enclosure, as seen in April 2010. Photo: Desmond Kwande / AFP via Getty Images.
Great Zimbabwe’s first rocks were laid around 900 C. E., and building lasted 300 years. The Great Enclosure, which was constructed of thousands of bricks, was constructed to form compounds of hills and valleys that were then joined together without mortar until it was finished. Staff heated large rock chunks in a fire and poured cold water on them, causing them to naturally break into brick-like pieces.
The hills complex is Great Zimbabwe’s oldest section—and home to its king. Here, the granite birds were likely sat atop rows. However, the Great Enclosure—a ring-shaped walls measuring 820 foot long and 36 ft high—remains Great Zimbabwe’s most memorable feature. It’s the largest pre-colonial construction south of the Sahara, and the second largest in Africa by surface area, outdone simply by Egypt’s temples. A thin passage leads to the Great Enclosure’s likewise famous circular castle. The king’s ladies, kids, and servants good lived here. However, the Valley Complex below housed the city’s subordinates from the 14th through 16th centuries.
The Hill Complex at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins Photo: DeAgostini / Getty Images.
Why Great Zimbabwe was abandoned, no one knows for sure. Some claim that there were n’t much natural resources to support the area. People cite the Kingdom of Mutapa, which took over the area around 1430 C. E.
An American miner became the first known american to visit the ruins on a hunting journey in 1867 despite Portuguese traders ‘ continuing accounts of Great Zimbabwe from their Muslim cohorts throughout the 16th century. The miner afterwards showed them to Karl Mauch, a European explorer who denied the claim that Black individuals had constructed for a site. Mauch rather resurrected an ancient European story from the period when Great Zimbabwe was only known through gossips, which claimed that foreigners, like the Phoenicians or Babylonians, constructed Great Zimbabwe as the Queen of Sheba’s second palace, as the Bible says.
In 1895, Great Zimbabwe became piece of Rhodesia. Conquerors, tantalized by the goldmines apparently situated around the Queen’s second house, looted Great Zimbabwe heavily, including all eight of its marble eagles. They’ve been restituted since.
A statue of a bird made of granite was put up for a while at the Great Zimbabwe statue, 2020. Photo: Jekesai Njikizana / AFP via Getty Images.
Data that disproved the Queen of Sheba myth began to emerge. In 1906, England’s earliest academic dig at Great Zimbabwe revealed its true causes. Archaeologist Gertrude Caton Thompson used modern science to support his assumption in 1929. However, the white-minority authorities of Rhodesia continued to support the story until Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980, and it named itself after this pre-colonial figure.
The World Monuments Fund maintains the status of the Great Zimbabwe remains as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are work afoot to care for the remains, analyze their history, and gain scholarship to a new generation of legitimate heirs, like Shadreck Chirikure.
Often, archaeology gets huge. In Huge! we delve deeply into the nation’s largest, towering, most spectacular statues. Who built them? How did they get it? Why therefore great?