Back Groot-Zimbabwe Afrikaans زيمبابوي العظمى Arabic زيمبابوى العظمى ARZ Gran Zimbabue AST Zimbabwe AVK Böyük Zimbabve Azerbaijani Бөйөк Зимбабве Bashkir Вялікі Зімбабвэ Byelorussian Вялікі Зымбабвэ BE-X-OLD Велико Зимбабве Bulgarian
.jpg) Tower in the Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe | |
  Shown within Zimbabwe  Great Zimbabwe (Africa) | |
| Location | Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 20°16′S 30°56′E / 20.267°S 30.933°E |
| Type | Settlement |
| Part of | Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe |
| Area | 7.22 km2 (2.79 sq mi) |
| History | |
| Material | Granite |
| Founded | 11th century CE |
| Abandoned | 16th or 17th century CE |
| Periods | Late Iron Age |
| Cultures | Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe |
| Official name | Great Zimbabwe National Monument |
| Criteria | Cultural: i, iii, vi |
| Reference | 364 |
| Inscription | 1986 (10th Session) |
Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from 1000 AD, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa. Major construction on the city began in the 11th century until the 15th century, and it was abandoned in the 16th or 17th century.[1][2][3] The edifices were erected by ancestors of the Shona people, currently located in Zimbabwe and nearby countries.[4] The stone city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres (2.79 sq mi) and could have housed up to 18,000 people at its peak, giving it a population density of approximately 2,500 inhabitants per square kilometre (6,500/sq mi). The Zimbabwe state centred on it likely covered 50,000 km² (19,000 sq mi).[2] It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The site of Great Zimbabwe is composed of the Hill Complex, the Valley Complex, and the Great Enclosure (constructed at different times), and contained area for commoner housing within the perimeter walls. There is disagreement on the functions of the complexes among scholars. Some consider them to have been residences for the royals and elites at different periods of the site, while others infer them to have had separate functions. The Great Enclosure, with its 11 m (36 ft) high dry stone walls (that is, constructed without mortar), was built during the 13th and 14th centuries, and likely served as the royal residence, with demarcated public spaces for rituals.[5]
The earliest document mentioning 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.[6] Great Zimbabwe and surrounding sites were looted by European antiquarians between the 1890s and 1920s. Some later studies of the monument were controversial, as the white government of Rhodesia pressured archaeologists to deny its construction by black Africans. Its African origin only became consensus by the 1950s. 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 smaller ruins, known as "zimbabwes", spread across the Zimbabwe Highveld.[7] There are around 200 such sites in Southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique, with monumental, mortarless walls.[8]
- ^ Pikirayi, Innocent; Sulas, Federica; Chirikure, Shadreck; Chikumbirike, Joseph; Sagiya, Munyaradzi Elton (January 2023). "The Conundrum of Great Zimbabwe". Journal of Urban Archaeology. 7: 95–114. doi:10.1484/J.JUA.5.133452. ISSN 2736-2426. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- ^ a b Chirikure, Shadreck (1 June 2020). "New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe". Journal of Archaeological Research. 28 (2): 139–186. doi:10.1007/s10814-019-09133-w. ISSN 1573-7756.
- ^ Pikirayi, Innocent (2020), "Great Zimbabwe, 1100–1600 AD, Rise, Development, and Demise of", in Smith, Claire (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 4696–4709, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_2666, ISBN 978-3-030-30018-0, retrieved 21 December 2024
- ^ "Great Zimbabwe: African City of Stone". Live Science. 10 March 2017.
- ^ Pikirayi, Innocent (2020), "Great Zimbabwe, 1100–1600 AD, Rise, Development, and Demise of", in Smith, Claire (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 4696–4709, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_2666, ISBN 978-3-030-30018-0, retrieved 20 December 2024
- ^ Fleminger, David (2008). Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape. 30 Degrees South. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-9584891-5-7.
- ^ M. Sibanda, H. Moyana et al. 1992. The African Heritage. History for Junior Secondary Schools. Book 1. Zimbabwe Publishing House. ISBN 978-0-908300-00-6
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
antiquitywas invoked but never defined (see the help page).