The Great Zimbabwe Civilization: An African Jewel Now Brought To Light
When people think about civilizations – they rarely think of Africa. A lot of people’s summary of African history is 1) Ancient Egypt 2) some tribes did something maybe?!? 3) Western colonialism and genocide.
But African history is so rich. Across the millennia dozens of civilizations rose and fell in Africa, creating incredible architecture, breath-taking art, and making deep discoveries about the world and the human condition. The Nubians, Mali, the Kingdom of the Congo, the Kingdom of Benin, the Tuareg people – there are so many.
No African civilization demonstrates this, more than the Great Zimbabwe civilization. The civilization was rich beyond belief, mining 40% of the gold in the world at the time and leaving epic castle-like ruins across Southern Africa. Due to this, many 20th century researchers refused to believe it could have been built by African people. Now it is a source of National pride and when Rhodesia, the British colony declared independence, they named themselves after the city, Zimbabwe. It’s nice that the world gets better sometimes. Let’s dive in, to the Great Zimbabwe civilization.
Great Zimbabwe: The basics
The Great Zimbabwe civilization was around from 1,100 ACE to 1,500 ACE in modern Zimbabwe. It is mainly known for one central city, known as “Great Zimbabwe”. The city took more than 300 years to build and probably had at least 18,000 people. There are at least 200 other sites around Southern Africa, all with a similar architectural. There are no straight lines or jagged edges, instead their cities are full of sloping walls and enclosures. Some of these walls are over 11 meters high and were all made without any mortar or plaster – they are perfectly cut stones slotted into each other. The fact they’ve survived 500 years into the present day, through African heat and rains is incredible. The drainage system underlying the city still works today and is used by people in the area.
We don’t have a lot of information about the people of the Great Zimbabwe civilization. We are not sure what language they spoke, but it was probably something pretty similar to what the native people in the area speak today. We don’t have a lot of inscriptions or carvings. We don’t know a lot about their culture, who their rulers were or how they organized themselves.
What we do know, is they were incredibly wealthy. The main site is surrounded by more than 4,000 gold mines and 500 copper mines. It is likely that 40% of all the world’s gold that had been mined at the time, came from that area. Thousands of necklaces and gold jewelry have been found around the civilization, often beautiful and intricately worked. Great Zimbabwe traded with many other civilizations. Gold from Zimbabwe was taken to ports on the Mozambique coasts and sold on to many civilizations – Great Zimbabwe artifacts end as far away as China. Some of the artifacts that were created which survive today are just stunningly beautiful.
Great Zimbabwe: A history of denial
It is deliberate that we know so little about Great Zimbabwe. From the very earliest discovery of the ruins, they were hidden. Local people have always known of their existence, many treated it as a sacred place, and avoided it. A wide variety of foreigners came to study the ruins at different times, after its “discovery” by Europeans in the early 1,800s. The responses of the Europeans varied from absurd, to even more absurd. One described the site as “a product of an infantile mind”, claiming the ruins were disgusting. Others stated that they were incredible, so incredible that they couldn’t have been built by native Africans. One of the most racist theories suggested that the ruins were actually built by a “lost Roman legion” that wandered down into Southern African and settled down and built the ruins, believing this was a more plausible theory than construction by Africans. Even up until the 1970s and 80s, when Zimbabwe was seeking independence, archeologists were regularly pressured by the Government to deny its true origins.
This deceit and disinterest in the ruins had real consequences. Firstly, many of the initial Europeans pillaged the sites – taking whatever they pleased so they could be taken back to Europe to be put on display. Some individuals left with more than 10kg of gold artifacts, paying local people to excavate them and carry them back to their ships. Government has also not put any real effort into protecting the ruins until recently. Large numbers of amateur archeological expeditions took place in the 20th century, where people took away artifacts and did extensive damage to the sites. There has even been golding mining in some areas of the sites, with almost no effort made to preserve them. Imagine, how different a view the world might have of Africa, if this had not occurred (see some more here).
In the modern world – Great Zimbabwe has been reclaimed. The ruins are a great source of pride to the country. In fact, Zimbabwe was actually named after them. The British colony that contained the ruins was initially called Rhodesia. However, when Rhodesia claimed independence in the 70s, they looked around for a new name to call themselves, the selected “Zimbabwe” which is the name the local people had for the ruins, which loosely translates to stone houses. Similarly, the golden rhino is a well-known symbol of African pride, replicas of it are used to award honors by the African National Congress (the party of Nelson Mandella).
Africa: The future
Africa really is the future of a lot of archeology. The history of Europe is very well known. We know most of the kings of most of the empires from about 1,500, if not before. Africa however, is still much more mysterious.
Much of the research on new non-western archeological sites, coming out of Africa, Asia and South America is very new. Some of the first research papers written on these civilizations were only published in the last 20 years. A wide variety of exciting new techniques are being used to find and identify archeological sites. For example, some scientists are even using satellite imagery, particularly radar to penetrate beneath vegetation, such as in the Amazon to identify massive new sites in hard to reach locations. We have spent so long, so interested in ourselves. And been so disinterested in others.
Incredible things are happening in Africa. We, here at The Universal Story, cannot wait to find out more.
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