Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe: Tower in the Great Enclosure.

Shown within Zimbabwe

Location Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe

20°16′S 30°56′E20.267°S
Coordinates 30.933°ECoordinates: 20°16′S
30°56′E20.267°S 30.933°E

Type Settlement

Part of Kingdom of Zimbabwe

Area 7.22 square kilometres (1,780 acres)

 History

Founded 11th century

Abandoned 15th century

Periods Late Iron Age

Cultures Kingdom of Zimbabwe

Site notes

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Official name Great Zimbabwe National Monument

Criteria Cultural: i, iii, vi

Reference 364

Inscription 1986 (10th session)

Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe
and the town of Masvingo. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the country's
Late Iron Age. Construction on the city began in the 11th century and continued until it was
abandoned in the 15th century.[1][2] The edifices were erected by the ancestral Shona.[2] The stone
city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres (1,780 acres) which, at its peak, could have housed
up to 18,000 people. It is recognised as a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local monarch. As such, it
would have been used as the seat of political power. Among the edifice's most prominent
features were its walls, some of which were over five metres high. They were constructed
without mortar (dry stone). Eventually, the city was abandoned and fell into ruin.

The earliest known written mention of the Great Zimbabwe ruins was in 1531 by Vicente
Pegado, captain of the Portuguese garrison of Sofala, on the coast of modern-day Mozambique,
who recorded it as Symbaoe. The first confirmed visits by Europeans were in the late 19th
century, with investigations of the site starting in 1871.[3] Later, studies of the monument were
controversial in the archaeological world, with political pressure being put upon archaeologists
by the government of Rhodesia to deny its construction by native African people.[4] Great
Zimbabwe has since been adopted as a national monument by the Zimbabwean government, and
the modern independent state was named after it. The word great distinguishes the site from the
many hundreds of small ruins, now known as "zimbabwes", spread across the Zimbabwe
Highveld.[5] There are 200 such sites in southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and
Manyikeni in Mozambique, with monumental, mortarless walls; Great Zimbabwe is the largest
of these.[6]

This was the end of my research by audrey