An outline, era by era

Great Zimbabwe

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

Great Zimbabwe is a large ruined stone city in the south of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was built and expanded mainly between the 11th and 15th centuries CE by Shona-speaking ancestors of today's people of the region. At its height it held perhaps ten thousand or more people, though estimates vary. Its name comes from Shona words usually translated as 'stone houses' or 'venerated houses'.

The site has three main parts: the Hill Complex, the Great Enclosure with its tall curved granite walls, and the Valley Ruins. Its wealth rested on cattle and on trade in gold and ivory with Swahili ports on the Indian Ocean coast, which linked it to merchants as far away as India and China. The city declined in the 15th century, and many people moved to other centres such as Khami and the Mutapa state. It matters as the largest of the dry-stone towns of southern Africa and as a case study in how colonial myths distorted African history.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Early farming communities on the Zimbabwe plateau

    Event

    What happened

    From about the 3rd to 7th centuries CE, Iron Age farming communities settle the highlands between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, keeping cattle and growing millet and sorghum. Around 900 to 1000 CE, communities at Leopard's Kopje and then Mapungubwe, in the Limpopo valley, build larger settlements trading with the coast.

    The rest is history

    Mapungubwe flourished until about 1300 and was a regional power based on cattle, gold and ivory. Its decline, often linked to changing climate and shifting trade routes, is debated. Great Zimbabwe grew up on the Zimbabwe plateau from the 11th century. Many archaeologists see cultural links with Mapungubwe and its predecessors, such as similar cattle-based economies and stone-walling traditions, but direct political continuity is not established.

    Sources

    1. BookHuffman, Thomas N. Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007.
    2. BookPikirayi, Innocent. The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2001.

  2. The Indian Ocean gold and ivory trade

    Event

    What happened

    From the 9th and 10th centuries, Swahili coastal towns such as Kilwa and Sofala export gold and ivory from the interior to Arab, Persian and Indian merchants. Gold from the Zimbabwe plateau passes down the Sabi and other river routes to Sofala. In the 14th century, Kilwa's wealth is described by the traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited about 1331.

    The rest is history

    Great Zimbabwe lay in the plateau's gold-bearing country and took part in this trade. Imported goods found at the site include Chinese celadon, Persian bowls and glass beads, showing real long-distance links. How far its rulers controlled the flow of gold to the coast is debated. Many scholars think access to this trade helped the elite grow rich enough to build in stone. Portuguese writers of the early 1500s later heard of the inland stone towns from coastal merchants.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryIbn Battuta. Rihla (Travels). Arabic travel account, c. 1355 CE, describing Kilwa and the East African coast.Describes Kilwa in the early 1330s.
    2. BookPikirayi, Innocent. The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2001.

  3. Building the Hill Complex and the Great Enclosure

    Event

    What happened

    Settlement on the Hill at Great Zimbabwe begins around the 11th century. Stone walling develops over the following centuries, and the Great Enclosure, whose outer wall is about 250 metres around and up to about 11 metres high, is built mostly in the 13th to 15th centuries. The walls are of granite blocks laid without mortar.

    The rest is history

    Radiocarbon dates place the main stone building between roughly 1100 and 1450. Most researchers see the walls mainly as symbols of status that divided space between rulers, elite households and commoners, though a defensive role cannot be ruled out. The Great Enclosure's conical tower has no known interior. The scale of the work implies a ruling class able to command much labour, supported by cattle wealth and trade.

    Sources

    1. BookGarlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973.
    2. BookHuffman, Thomas N. Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1996.

  4. The Zimbabwe birds and the ruling class

    Event

    What happened

    Eight carved soapstone birds, each on a tall monolith, are found at Great Zimbabwe, mostly in the Hill Complex, in the late 19th century. They show a bird with some human features, such as lips and five toes. Other finds include iron tools, gold beads, copper ingots and spindle whorls for cotton.

    The rest is history

    Many researchers read the birds as emblems of royal authority or links to ancestral spirits, drawing on Shona beliefs, though the exact meaning is debated. The finds show local craft in iron, gold and cloth. The bird became the emblem on the flag of independent Zimbabwe in 1980, and the country took its name from the site.

    Sources

    1. BookGarlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973.
    2. BookHuffman, Thomas N. Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1996.

  5. Decline of the city in the 15th century

    Event

    What happened

    During the 15th century, Great Zimbabwe is gradually abandoned as a centre of power. By about 1450 its main building has ended. Other stone-walled capitals, notably Khami in the south-west, rise in the same period.

    The rest is history

    Causes are debated. Suggested factors include exhausted grazing and firewood around a large town, shifting gold and trade routes, and political rivalry. Population and power moved elsewhere rather than vanishing. Khami became the capital of the Torwa state, and in the north the Mutapa state emerged in the Zambezi region.

    Sources

    1. BookPikirayi, Innocent. The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2001.
    2. BookBeach, D. N. The Shona and Zimbabwe 900-1850. London: Heinemann, 1980.

  6. Portuguese reports of the stone towns

    Event

    What happened

    In 1531 the Portuguese official Vicente Pegado, captain of Sofala, writes a report that mentions a large stone building in the interior called Symbaoe, known from Swahili merchants. In 1552 the chronicler João de Barros publishes a fuller account in his Décadas da Ásia, drawing on such coastal information. He says the local people regard it as the seat of a ruler and that it has inscriptions over the door which Muslim merchants could not read.

    The rest is history

    By then the city was already in decline, but these reports show it was known as an African royal site. Barros's account fed European speculation and was later used to link the ruins to Ophir. It is among the earliest surviving European descriptions of the site, though neither Pegado nor Barros is known to have seen it himself.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBarros, João de. Décadas da Ásia, Decade I, book 10. Portuguese chronicle, 1552.Contains the report of Symbaoe, drawn from coastal informants.
    2. BookBeach, D. N. The Shona and Zimbabwe 900-1850. London: Heinemann, 1980.

  7. The Queen of Sheba and King Solomon's mines

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Great Zimbabwe is said to be the ruins of Ophir, the source of King Solomon's gold, or the palace of the Queen of Sheba. The idea is told that no African people could have built such a city, so it must be the work of Phoenicians, Arabs or another outside people.

    The rest is history

    The Ophir idea came from 16th-century Portuguese writers, and was popular after Karl Mauch visited in 1871 and claimed to find Sheba's palace. In 1905 David Randall-MacIver, and in 1929 Gertrude Caton-Thompson, showed from excavation and the finds that the site was medieval and African in origin. The white-minority government of Rhodesia nonetheless promoted the foreign-builder theory into the 1970s. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the 11th to 15th century range.

    Sources

    1. BookRandall-MacIver, David. Medieval Rhodesia. London: Macmillan, 1906.
    2. BookCaton-Thompson, Gertrude. The Zimbabwe Culture: Ruins and Reactions. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.
    3. BookGarlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973.Discusses how the foreign-builder myth was used in colonial Rhodesia.

  8. Mutota and the founding of the Mutapa state

    Origin story

    The legend

    Oral tradition tells that Mutota, a prince from Great Zimbabwe, leads his people north in search of salt, and founds a new kingdom in the Zambezi valley. His son Matope extends its power to the sea. The rulers are known as the Mwene Mutapa, often rendered 'lord of the conquered lands'.

    The rest is history

    The Mutapa state is real, and was documented by Portuguese traders from the early 16th century. It appears to have formed in the 15th century, and the tradition links it to Great Zimbabwe's descendants. The meaning of the title is disputed. The salt story is a later tradition and cannot be confirmed. Historians generally accept a cultural connection rather than a single migration led by one prince.

    Sources

    1. BookBeach, D. N. The Shona and Zimbabwe 900-1850. London: Heinemann, 1980.
    2. BookMudenge, S. I. G. A Political History of Munhumutapa c1400-1902. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1988.

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