The Kingdom of Zimbabwe (1220–1450) was a kingdom located in the territory of modern-day Zimbabwe. The word “Zimbabwe” is thought to be derived from a Shona phrase meaning “stone enclosure” or “house of rock.”
The House of Rock.
It’s not the name of a dance club or a new band. It’s actually a translation of the Shona word, “Zimbabwe.” Though not the best illustration of the modern African nation, this phrase is a perfect description of the ancient city within its borders known as Great Zimbabwe. Sixty acres of immense stone ruins comprise the city and tell the story of the people who created and resided in it some 900 years ago.
For a long time, many Westerners argued that such amazing structures could not have been crafted in Africa without European influence or assistance. These notions reflect ethnocentrism, or the tendency to view one’s own culture as the best and others as inferior. With the help of modern dating techniques, today’s archaeologists have been able to disprove these arguments and expose the truth. Africans, and Africans alone, were responsible for building this astounding and complex city.
Shona Settlement
The first inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe were Shona-speaking peoples who likely settled in the region as early as 400 C.E. Back then, the land was full of possibilities: plains of fertile soil to support farming and herding, and mineral rich territories to provide gold, iron, copper, and tin for trading and crafting. It was fine place for the Shona to call home.
Over the years, descendants of the Shona made transitions from simple farming communities to more complex, stratified societies. By 1000 C.E., the population of Great Zimbabwe was divided and ranked by status — from elite leaders and their cattle to the peasants who did all the work. Cattle were very desirable and actually more valuable than most of the workers.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
In response to the changing social, political, and economic landscape, new buildings were gradually built. Tremendous stone houses were constructed by the peasants for their kings. Sophisticated workplaces were designed for conducting trades such as blacksmithing.
The buildings were made of heavy granite blocks, stacked tightly together. Stones were arranged carefully, and no mortar was used to seal them together. The largest and most impressive building was an elliptical structure known today as the Great or Western Enclosure. The remains of its outer wall measure over 800 feet long and up to 32 feet high. The wall enclosed several huts and a tall, cone-shaped tower. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the enclosure was the city’s center and was occupied only by the elite. It was the dividing line between the rich and the rest.
Several clues led to this theory. First, remnants of exotic items from overseas were found within the enclosure. Second, no evidence of cooking was found within the walled area. Most likely, this means that food was prepared elsewhere by servants and delivered to the wealthy inhabitants upon demand. And third, evidence of only 100-200 residents is shown, while many thousands occupied the city.
Where did everyone else live? They lived in mud huts surrounding the enclosure. Although the huts were not quite as glamorous as the granite “palaces,” they were well constructed.
Long Live Rock
By 1200 C.E., the city had grown strong, and was well known as an important religious and trading center. Some believe that religion triggered the city’s rise to power, and that the tall tower was used for worship. The people of Great Zimbabwe most likely worshipped Mwari, the supreme god in the Shona religion.
Long looted by treasure hunters, thrill-seekers, and lay archaeologists, it has been only in past two decades that the ruins of the stone city of Great Zimbabwe have begun to reveal their secrets of past African culture and history.
Discoveries of Chinese porcelain, engraved glass from the Middle East, and metal ornaments from West Africa provide evidence that Great Zimbabwe participated in a comprehensive trade network during the 13th and 14th centuries. Gold was probably its chief export and East African cities — especially those along the coast that had overseas connections — were most likely its primary trading partners.
Zimbabwe’s prosperity continued until the mid-15th century. At this time, the city’s trade activity declined and the people began to migrate elsewhere. The exact cause of the evacuation remains a puzzle, but many scientists agree that a decline in soil quality and fertility was probably a major factor. The Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe has declined, but the House of Rock still stands.
The civilization of Great Zimbabwe was one of the most significant civilizations in the world during the Medieval period. European travelers from Germany, Portugal, and Britain were astonished to learn of this powerful African civilization in the interior of southern Africa. The first European to visit Great Zimbabwe was a German geologist, Carl Mauch, in 1871. Like others before him, Mauch refused to believe that indigenous Africans could have built such an extensive network of monuments made of granite stone. Thus, Mauch assumed that the Great Zimbabwe monuments were created by biblical characters from the north: “I do not think that I am far wrong if I suppose that the ruin on the hill is a copy of Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah and the building in the plain a copy of the palace where the Queen of Sheba lived during her visit to Solomon.” Mauch further stated that a “civilized [read: white] nation must once have lived there.”
Later Europeans also speculated that Great Zimbabwe was built by Portuguese travelers, Arabs, Chinese, or Persians. No consideration was given to the possibility of local indigenous Africans having built the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, because European writers generally agreed that Africans did not have the capacity to build anything of significance, particularly not monuments made with skilled stone masonry.
In 1890, British imperialist and colonizer Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) conquered a large portion of southern African and had the region named after himself. Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) came under British control and Rhodes echoed the theme of Mauch as he argued that the Great Zimbabwe monuments were build by foreigners. To promote his goal of misrepresenting the origins of Zimbabwe, Rhodes established the Ancient Ruins Company and financed men such as James Theodore Bent, who was sent to Zimbabwe by the British Association of Science, and sponsored by Rhodes. After his investigation Bent concluded in his book, Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1892), that items found within the Great Zimbabwe complex “proved” that the civilization was not build by local Africans.
In 1902, the British continued with their falsification agenda as British archaeologist Richard Hall was hired to investigate the Great Zimbabwe site. Hall asserted in his work, The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia(1902), that the civilization was built by “more civilized races” than the Africans. He argued that the last phase of Great Zimbabwe was the transitional and “decadent period,” a time when the foreign builders interbred with local Africans. Hall went out of his way to eliminate archeological evidence which would have proven an indigenous African origin of Great Zimbabwe. He removed about two meters deep of archeological remains, which effectively destroyed the evidence that would have established an indigenous African origin of the site. He condescendingly stated that his goal was to “remove the filth and decadence of Kaffir occupation.”
In 1905, soon after Hall’s destructive activity, British archeologist David Randall-MacIver studied the mud dwellings within the stone enclosures, and he became the first European researcher of the site to assert that the dwellings were “unquestionably African in every detail.” After MacIver’s assertion, which was almost equivalent to blasphemy to the British imperialists, archeologists were banned from the Zimbabwe site for almost 25 years!
It was in 1929 that British archeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson led the first all-female excavation. Caton-Thompson investigated the site and was able to definitively argue in her work, The Zimbabwe Culture: Ruins & Reactions (1931), that the ruins were of African origin. She assessed the available archeological evidence (artifacts, nearby dwellings), and the oral tradition of the modern Shona-speaking people, and compared them to the ancient sites to determine the African foundation of Great Zimbabwe. Despite Caton-Thompson’s conclusive evidence, the myth of a foreign origin of Great Zimbabwe continued for another half a century until Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Ian Smith was the last major British colonial figure to falsify evidence of Great Zimbabwe’s origin. In November 1965, Smith had established a white minority government that declared its independence from the British homeland government, and thus this colony broke away from Britain to form an independent regime under Smith. Ian Smith became “prime minister” of Southern Rhodesia. He continued the colonial falsification of Great Zimbabwe’s origins by developing a fake history and a policy of making sure that the official guide books for tourists would show images of Africans bowing down to foreign innovators, who allegedly built Great Zimbabwe. It was not until 1980 that the native Zimbabweans overthrew Smith’s minority government and ended the colonial era. In that year, Robert Mugabe became president and the country was renamed “Zimbabwe,” in honor of the Great Zimbabwe civilization of the past.
References
- Oliver, Roland & Anthony Atmore (1975). Medieval Africa 1250–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 738
- Walker, Robin. When we ruled
Janakesho 
Very interesting page!
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