Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Great Zimbabwe Ruins is one of the best tourist destinations in Zimbabwe. This great historic wonder draws millions of domestic and international tourists round the year.

Great Zimbabwe is the remains of a city, which was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe at one time. The history of the city dates back to 1100 to 1450 AD when Zimbabwe was going through the latter part of the Iron Age. The Great Zimbabwe Monument, which initially started to be built in the 11th century and which kept on to be constructed till the 14th century, covered an area of 1,784 acres (722 hectares). At its highest point, the monument had the capacity to accommodate approximately 18,000 people. Great Zimbabwe served as an imperial fortress for the Zimbabwean king and would have been utilized as the center of their political supremacy. One of the most famous aspects of Great Zimbabwe was the walls. Some of the walls were more than five meters tall and they were built without mortar.

In due course, the city was mostly deserted and destroyed. Firstly, Europeans invaded it in the former part of the 16th century. Exploration of the place first started in the 19th century, when the monument created immense controversy among the archaeological community, with political pressure being put on archaeologists by the erstwhile white supremacist government of Rhodesia to refute that indigenous Zimbabweans could have ever created it. From that time, the Government of Zimbabwe has assumed Great Zimbabwe as a state memorial, with the contemporary nation receiving its name from it. The word “Great” differentiates the place from the various little remains, named as Zimbabwes, scattered throughout the Zimbabwe highveld. At present, there are 200 such places in Southern Africa like Manekweni in Mozambique and Bumbusi in Zimbabwe, with colossal walls without mortars and Great Zimbabwe is the biggest.

Description of the Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Settlement

The Great Zimbabwe region was established by the fourth century. Groups of people presently known as Ziwa or Gokomere society cultivated the basin, excavated and brought out iron, but constructed no stone buildings between the fourth and seventh centuries. These are the oldest Iron Age establishments in the region recognized from archaeological excavations.

Construction and development

Erection of the stone structures began in the 11th century and went on for more than 300 years. The remains at Great Zimbabwe are some of the earliest and biggest formations situated in Southern Africa, and are the second oldest following Mapungubwe in South Africa, which lies in close proximity to the site. The most prominent structure, typically denoted as the Great Enclosure, features walls as tall as 11 meters (36 feet) stretching around 250 m (820 feet), making it the biggest prehistoric construction to the south of the Sahara Desert. The city and its state, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, thrived from 1200 to 1500 and its development was associated to the downfall of Mapungubwe from approximately 1300, because of change in weather or the better availability of gold in the surrounding area of Great Zimbabwe. At its highest point, approximations are that Great Zimbabwe had nearly 18,000 residents. The remains that exist were constructed wholly of stone. The remains cover 7 km² (1,800 acres) and span a radius of 160 to 320 km (100 to 200 miles).

Aspects of the ruins

Vicente Pegado, Captain of the Portuguese battalion of Sofala, explained Zimbabwe in the following manner in 1531:

In the middle of the gold mines of the interior plains amid the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, there is a fort constructed of stones of spectacular size, and there seems to be no mortar fastening them. This structure is more or less bounded by hills, on which there are other forts similar to it in the styling of stone and the nonexistence of mortar, and one of them is a tower over 22 m (12 fathoms) tall. The indigenous people of the nation name these structures Symbaoe, which as per their dialect means court.

The remains comprise three separate architectural clusters. They are recognized as the Valley Complex, the Hill Complex, and the Great Enclosure. The Hill Complex is the earliest, and was occupied from the ninth to thirteenth centuries. The Great Enclosure was inhabited from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. The Valley Complex was inhabited from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Important aspects of the Hill Complex incorporate the Eastern Enclosure, in which it is assumed the Zimbabwe Birds was placed, an elevated gallery area overlooking the Eastern Enclosure, and a massive stone in a form resembling that of the Zimbabwe Bird. The Great Enclosure is made up of an interior fence, surrounding a set of edifices and a newer external fence. The Conical Tower, 30 feet tall with a diameter of 18 feet, was built amid the two fences. The Valley Complex is split into the Upper and Lower Valley Remains, with various phases of inhabitation.

The Valley Complex

There are various archaeological explanations of these categorizations. It has been recommended that the complexes embody the work of succeeding monarchs. A number of the new monarchs established a new house. The center of power shifted from the Hill Complex in the 12th century, to the Great Enclosure, the Upper Valley and lastly the Lower Valley in the former part of 16th century. The substitute “structuralist” explanation maintains that the various complexes had diverse roles: the Valley complex was meant for the residents, the Hill Complex as a place of worship, and the Great Enclosure was utilized by the king. Edifices that were more sophisticated were possibly constructed for the rulers, even though it was disputed that the chronicling of discoveries in the complexes does not corroborate this explanation. Some experts argue that the remains might have accommodated an astronomical observation tower, though the importance of the foundations on which these declarations are based is debated.

Famous artifacts

The most prominent works of art retrieved from the Great Zimbabwe Monument are the eight Zimbabwe Birds. These were sculpted from a soaprock or micaceous metamorphic rock on the crowns of monoliths (columns) the length of a human being. Holes in a display place in the Eastern Enclosure of the Hill Complex seem intended to clutch the columns with the Zimbabwe Birds, but since they were not discovered in the original place, it can’t be decided which column and bird were where.

Other relics include earthenware, soapstone statuettes, ornately designed ivory, iron bells, copper and iron wire, iron tools, bronze spearheads, copper blocks and vessels and gold beads, lockets, bangles, and casings.

Trade

Archaeological proofs imply that Great Zimbabwe was a hub for business, with works of art signifying that the city consisted a portion of a business arrangement associated with Kilwa and stretching in so far as China. This intercontinental business, mostly in ivory and bullion, was over and above the regional farming business, in which livestock were particularly significant. The big livestock flock that delivered the city shifted occasionally and was administered by the court. Arabic coins, Chinese earthenware splinters, glass beads and other non-regional articles have been dug out at Zimbabwe. In spite of these powerful intercontinental business relations, there is no proof to advocate switch of architectural ideas between Great Zimbabwe and hubs like Kilwa.

Decline of the Site

Reasons for the destruction and eventual desertion of the place have been recommended as because of a slump in business in comparison to places further north, political volatility, food crisis, and scarcity of water caused by weather change. The Mutapa state came up in the 15th century from the northward extension of the Great Zimbabwe culture. Great Zimbabwe also precedes the Nyanga and Khami traditions.