Great Zimbabwe National Monument - Journey in Africa - Travel & Discover

The impressive ruins of Great Zimbabwe mean stone houses, which cover an area of some 80 hectares and lie 30 kilometers from Masvingo, formerly Fort Victoria. Great Zimbabwe is one of the most dramatic architectural landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa. As a cultural symbol and link with the pre-colonial past, it's of prime importance for African identity in southern Africa. As in most parts of Zimbabwe, the basic social units in the area are the household or imba, the village or muxa, and the district or dunhu. The village, as the basis of the community, recognizes itself in one sense as a congregation of households and in a territorial sense as part of a larger community. There are approximately 73 villages in the area canvassed. The people have a strong religious and cultural belief system, based on ancestral spirit reverence. Many have also been influenced by missionary activities and Christian teachings, with the Dutch Reformed Church particularly influential through its mission station at Morganster Farm. Underlying traditional and cultural views and values attached to the monument and its environment are what are important from a heritage management point of view. It's accurate to say that Great Zimbabwe is sacred to the Shona people as a group, but there are significant regional and local differences within that group, especially in religion. Ancestral spirits play a fundamental role in people's daily lives on many levels, ranging from the family to the whole community and even for the nation, as the importance of spirit mediums to the liberation struggle shows. The spirit world may be divided into various categories, but in relation to Great Zimbabwe, it's the Muzimu and Hondora that are important. They're believed to have built Great Zimbabwe and still dwell there, according to local informants, leading all the traditional ceremonies performed at Great Zimbabwe, owning the land and controlling the rain. They have more power than the political chiefs. The Matopo are more sacred by far to the Shona than Great Zimbabwe. In most African societies, there's no distinction between nature and creator and no sharp separation between humanity and nature. The trees, mountains, rocks, forests and animals are treated as part of human life. They too are supposed to have a soul. In this context, the landscape is a communal resource and provides for the interplay of the human and natural species in a shared environment. With the 1931 Land Apportionment Act, the 720 hectares at Great Zimbabwe were declared a and the areas directly to the north and southeast were designated European land. Although the Zimbabwean traditional Daka structures are evidently related to contemporary southern African vernacular architecture, archaeological evidence indicates subtle differences in their design and construction. The structures were designed to last and were more complex than the single compartment dwelling houses, more recently synonymous with Daka material. The Daka houses in existence at the time of Great Zimbabwe were often divided into two or more compartments with verandas along with complicated interior platforms and fittings, all under one roof. The ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the capital of the Queen of Sheba, according to an age-old legend, are a unique testimony to the Bantu civilisation of the Shona between the 11th and 15th centuries. The city, which covers an area of nearly 80 hectares, was an important trading centre and was renowned from the Middle Ages onwards. A major component of any cultural landscape is the vegetation, which plays an important part in the overall preservation and presentation of a monument. Certain trees in Shona tradition have special roles as intermediaries with the divine, and some forests become sacred through being considered the home of the spirits. The importance of trees is especially interesting in African mythology, whether as a single tree or as a species, with each species associated with special attributes, or as sacred woods or forests. The relationship between nature and culture is also important. Shona resource management takes the form of environmental knowledge together with technical and ritual practices. This resource management is embedded in belief systems that promote the conservation and sustainable use of cultural and natural resources. In the Shona tradition, a shrine is a quintessential natural source of culture. The two are inseparable, so that human society has no meaning without the rocks, the pools, the caves and the trees, and they in turn are given meaning only by the residents among them of human beings. The great Zimbabwe site can be divided into four main architectural zones. These are the hill complex, the great enclosure, the valley ruins and the peripheral settlements. The first three components constitute the core or central part of great Zimbabwe. The inner perimeter wall separates the hill from the valley and the great enclosure. A second low stone wall, the outer perimeter wall, which runs around the southern and western sides of the great enclosure and the valley ruins, separates these areas from the surrounding peripheral areas. The great enclosure situated across the valley but adjacent to the hill complex is perhaps the monument's most spectacular and substantial structure. Its outer wall is 11 meters high at its highest point and approximately 252 meters long, making it by far the largest single prehistoric structure in sub-Saharan Africa. It contains a number of internal stone enclosures, darker platforms and other architectural features including an impressive conical tower. This single enormous structure allows the evolution of masonry techniques as well as the growing ambitions of its builders to be traced. Notable features of the outer wall are the gradual change in size and improvements in workmanship. Dolarite and ironstone rocks, timber and darker, were used in the construction of the monumental walls along with the predominant material, granite. Geological investigations indicate that the granite used for the blocks was mainly biotite. The blocks were quarried from the exfoliating bedrock located in the outcrop surrounding the monument. The dry stone walls at Great Zimbabwe perform one of two functions, providing freestanding enclosures or boundary walls or acting as retaining walls for the provision of terracing. The construction and structural behaviour of symbolic structures such as the conical tower and the buttresses found along passage walls, although not performing either of the above functions, may be considered similar to the freestanding walls. The freestanding walls are generally constructed of two outer faces of carefully staked and coarsed blocks infilled with core blocks, less regular in size and shape but generally of a similar nature. Contrary to general belief, the core is not rubble but carefully packed. The conical tower inside the great enclosure is a symbol of the site. The Great Zimbabwe ruins are situated in a landscape characterised by large outcrops of medium to coarse grained granite. The rock is fresh and consequently very strong. The upper and lower faces of blocks that make up the dry stone walls are fairly regular but are frequently curved and converging. Historical value is assigned to a place that marks human achievement or contributes in some way to our knowledge of the past. Such a place may be a typical or well-preserved example of the activity of a culture or group or of an era, or it may be associated with a particular individual. Often places are valued for their long history and for representing the unfolding of events rather than one phase or aspect of history alone. Many places have historic value because they reflect a long period of human history. They help us to take an imaginative step back in time to ponder the past lifestyles and histories of our ancestors. The pioneering works of David Randall McIver in 1905 to 1906, corroborated since by numerous finds of dated archaeological artefacts and by radiocarbon analysis, have proved that Great Zimbabwe was founded in the 11th century on a site which had been sparsely inhabited in by a Bantu population of the Iron Age, the Shona. In the 14th century, it was the principal city of a major state, extending over the gold-rich plateau. Its population exceeded 10,000 inhabitants. In about 1450, this capital was abandoned, not as a result of war, but because the hinterland could no longer provide food for the overpopulated city, and deforestation made it necessary to go further and further to find firewood. The resulting migration benefited Kami, which became the most influential city in the region, but signalled waning political power. When, in 1505, the Portuguese settled in Sofala, the region was divided between the rival powers of the kingdoms of Toa and Wenemutapa. The hill ruins, forming a huge granite mass atop a spur facing north-east-south-west, were continuously inhabited from the 11th to 15th centuries, and there are numerous layers of traces of human settlements. The hill complex is to the north of the site. The occupation of the hill goes back to the early farming period, when the communities hadn't yet developed the technique of dry stone walling. The archaeological stratigraphic sequence shows that stone wall building began on the hill. The dry stone walls constitute the major architectural features here. The largest of these structures on the hill is the western wall. This is perhaps the finest architectural construction on the site, on account of its monolith decorations, solid stone conical turrets, and an entrance incorporating lintels. The western enclosure provides plentiful evidence of human occupation, and gives the only complete occupation sequence of the whole settlement, from the early to later farming communities. This enclosure contains between three and five meters of stratified house floors, the thickest concentration anywhere on the monument, and the deposit forms a complete sequence. It's clear that Great Zimbabwe continues to be a revered national shrine, a place of worship symbolic of the national and cultural identity of Zimbabwe. The site is home to the departed and living spirits of Zimbabwe. As a result, it continues to play a central religious role, and a number of religious activities continue to be held here. The local communities esteem the place because of its spiritual and religious value. These indigenous communities regard the place as the abode of spirits, or Zimbabwe. These communities have continued to use the site for rain making, spirit appeasing ceremonies, and many other traditional rituals relating to the socio-economic plight or welfare of the indigenous communities. Land fertility and water are linked, and ceremonies to request rain are held almost annually. For the local communities, rain is life. Without it, animals, plants, and people will die. Oral histories linking the monument with the development of the Munhumatapa empire have also been recorded. The array of cultural and natural values associated with the monument are of immense scientific value, and provide opportunities for extracting knowledge about the prehistoric development of the Shona, and of Bantu speakers more generally. Great Zimbabwe also provides opportunities to study the evolution of a cultural landscape. The aesthetic value of a place may be described in terms of the association or mood it conjures up, or the objective beauty of its design, or the fact that it exemplifies a particular style, or superb craftsmanship, or artistic development of a high level. It recognizes some kind of creative high point, although this may be difficult to measure or quantify. To the western mind, with its strong emphasis on measured time, the symbolism of ancient things and the evidence of time's passing has in itself a strong effect on the visitor, in addition to the sense of otherness derived from such encounters with the past. These, combined with the innate beauty of artistic creations in original settings, produce a powerful aesthetic and emotional experience. One striking feature is the existence of parallel passages connecting individual enclosures in the valley, the longest of which connects the valley enclosures and the great enclosure. The narrow and at times buttressed entrances, together with the parallel passages, hold a suggestion of people's movements having been restricted within this ancient complex settlement. At Great Zimbabwe, the hill complex emerged as the most sacred part of the monument, particularly the cave. It's here that the spirits used to speak through the rocks. Some speak of huge caves and underground passages in the hill complex. In recent times, the conical tower has also gained popularity, particularly with the Limanwa people. The local communities view Great Zimbabwe as a sacred place, especially the cave in the hill. Great Zimbabwe is situated at the southern edge of the Zimbabwean plateau. Numerous granite hills here form a scarp which precipitates moisture from the prevailing south easterly winds. Rainfall at the site is higher than in the surrounding area, with days of local mist and light drizzle common throughout the year, even when the rest of the country is dry. The hill, more than anywhere else, shows the engineering qualities of the traditional stone masonry. Most of the dry stone wall structures on the hill are freestanding, although retaining walls are used in places to terrace the slope or provide a building platform. At present, the land surrounding the Great Zimbabwe Estate is still under a number of landholding systems. To the north is the Mutiriqua National Park, which is state land, and to the west is the communal land of Nimanwa Growth Point. This land that remains in the communal area is divided among chiefs Mugabe, Charumbira and Nimanwa. The fact that the entire country takes its name from the Great Zimbabwe site is a clear indication of its cultural value. In 1937, decades before independence, the site had been declared a national monument on the recommendation of the Commission for the Preservation of National and Historical Monuments and Relics in terms of Section 9 of the Monuments and Relics Act. Possibly the most serious problem affecting preservation and presentation at Great Zimbabwe has been vegetation growth. One of the major attractions of ruined monuments is the juxtaposition of the ruins with plants or vegetation. At Great Zimbabwe, plants grow on both dry stone and darker structures. To the romantic eye, this creates a very picturesque vision. The problem of vegetation growth is a serious one and there are no easy solutions to it. Trees and plants can't easily be removed. Their removal affects the traditionally held image of the monument, which the contemporary visitor has come to associate with the site's aesthetics. The aesthetic value of Great Zimbabwe includes aspects such as the size and form of the monument, its architectural style, materials used in its construction and the general visual appearance. Part of its aesthetic value rests on the site being the most spectacular in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of size and design and being comparable to sites such as Stonehenge, the Acropolis and the Egyptian Pyramids, all of which are physically attractive to see. Great Zimbabwe epitomizes the design principles of an architectural style whose physical appearance, in particular the dry stone architecture, has captured the imagination of all those interpretation, that they have social responsibilities for the ways in which evidence is exhibited and that the choices they make may have implications for human rights. The first curator for Great Zimbabwe, R. N. Hall, was appointed in 1902, specifically charged by the British South Africa Company, with the task of undertaking not scientific research but the preservation of the buildings, with the aim of making the monument more attractive to tourists. Hall's excavation culminated in 1905 with the publication of his book, Great Zimbabwe. The buttress is a freestanding wall with around 28 courses of approximately 786 centimetres on the outer face and 17 courses on the inner face of approximately 530 centimetres. It's about 200 centimetres thick at the top and 456 centimetres at the bottom. The civilisation of Great Zimbabwe was one of the most significant civilisations in the world during the medieval period. European travellers from Germany, Portugal and Britain were astonished to learn of this powerful African civilisation in the interior of Southern Africa. With its high conical tower, its long curved stone walls and its cosmopolitan artefacts, Great Zimbabwe attests to the existence of a thriving city that may have dominated trade and culture throughout Southern Africa sometime between the 12th and 17th centuries. Its unique architecture and sculpture, particularly the enigmatic birds carved from soapstone, bespeak a rich history, one that archaeologists continue to piece together today. Like many ancient cities, Great Zimbabwe has been shrouded by legend. In the 1500s, Portuguese traders visiting Angola and Mozambique, where they established colonies, wrote of a kingdom in the interior of Africa. Their descriptions offered many Europeans the promise of King Solomon's mines. The story of Great Zimbabwe, however, is ultimately that of early Shona culture and the African Iron Age. But it's also a tale of colonialism and politically motivated archaeology.