GREAT ZIMBABWE, MASVINGO
This Iron Age site, the symbol and namesake of modern Zimbabwe, lies 27 km south-east of Masvingo and is the remains of an extensive town built between 1200 and 1450 AD.
The word 'Zimbabwe' (plural madzimbabwe) is derived from the Shona words dzimba dza mabwe and means 'houses of stone'. Archaeologists and historians believe that from the 13th to 15th centuries Great Zimbabwe was the capital for a large area in Southern Africa. For more than 300 years, the settlement thrived and grew as the capital of a vast gold and ivory trading empire. At its peak, it was Africa’s most eminent city with 20 000 people living within sight of its towering walls. Arab and Swahili merchants brought beads and textiles from the middle East and ceramics and glassware from Asia. Priests and prophets conducted rituals within the stone enclosures, while from high upon a tumbled granite fortress, the nation’s spirits spoke through powerful mediums. Wars were waged, art and architecture flourished, dynasties reigned and were overthrown. As with all such ‘golden eras’ however, history soon swept past the empire and by the end of the 15th Century, the city lay abandoned, its markets and bazaars silent, its narrow stone passages and open courtyards echoing only to the glories of its distant past. But although forsaken, the city was not entirely forgotten. Stories of its existence and former grandeur surfaced from time to time. Vague references from early Arabic and Portuguese texts puzzled and intrigued European scholars while local tribes people tantalised explorers with shadowy yarns and half-remembered tales of archaic splendour amid lost ruins. They spoke of a colossal city of stone, of crumbling towers of granite blocks, of vine covered walls rising out of dense undergrowth, of golden jewellery and clay vessels and birds carved in rock. They spoke of the legends and mysteries of the ‘great houses of stone.’ They spoke of ‘Great Zimbabwe.’ |
