Welcome to Great Zimbabwe. The most powerful civilisation ever in Souther Africa

Greetings family.

Today, I would like to take you all on a journey to a place called Great Zimbabwe in the heart of Southern Africa.  It was designed as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986.

This city, with a population of 25 000 at least at its zenith, and which existed from the 11^th to the early 16^th century extending over 800 hectares, eventually grew to become the seat of the fabled Munhu Mutapa empire founded by Nyatsimba Mutota (pictured below)  which was the successor of the original Kingdom of Zimbabwe and which itself is also a World Heritage site. It is generally acknowledged as the third most powerful African Empire ever. What remains of this city can be found in the present day city of Masvingo in Zimbabwe which is about 200 miles South East of the Zimbabwean capital Harare.

A painting of Nyatsimba Mutota

Its original name was Dzimba DzeMabwe (the mighty house of stone) and it was constructed, over a period of centuries, by the members of the Shona tribe. At its glorious peak it was the administrative centre of an empire ruled by kings known as Mutapa's, or Mambo's before them, and covered most of modern day Zimbabwe and a large portion of present day Mozambique. 

The Mutapa's controlled all international and domestic trade routes along the present day Mozambican coast, and imposed taxes of up top 50 percent on all traders who did business within the boundaries of this empire. Trade was carried out in ivory, gold, copper, salt, livestock and agricultural produce, in exchange for fabrics, pottery, glass and beads from countries as far afield as China, Persia and Portugal. There also existed a thriving trade with bordering tribes within Africa itself.

The city generally housed the nobility, religious leaders, and the elite soldiers and their families, and its most famous section is the Great Enclosure which is where the king himself, and his wives and children lived.

The Great Enclosure

The valley complex housed the military top brass along with the kings special regiments who were tasked with the king, and the noble classes personal protection.

The religious leaders; the high priests, known as Mhondoro lived within a section known today as the Hills complex. 

They were the keepers of the eight holy Zimbabwe birds which survive to the this day and which were believed to bring luck, wisdom, and battlefield glory to the Munhu Mutapas who ruled at the given time . The birds are representations of the Bateleur eagle (Chapungu in the Shona language).They were carved out of soapstone by the original high priests of the site and served as the national symbols of the Great Zimbabwe and Munhu Mutapa empires A depiction of the Zimbabwe bird can be found on today's Zimbabwean flag and indeed they are the emblem of both Rhodesia and Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Bird

With walls as high as 15 metres in some places and, incredibly, built without any mortar at all, Great Zimbabwe is one of the most impressive structures anywhere in the world. Its very existence and durability is testament to the outstanding masonry skills of its founders and builders, the Shona tribe. 

It should be noted here that the Smith regime in the thenRhodesia (the fore runner of present day Zimbabwe), as well as their colonial forebears went to great lengths in their attempts to discredit the African builders of this magnificent city and try to attribute its construction to either Arabs or Europeans. They even went as far as to commission quack “researchers” to write pseudo-intellectual books, long since discredited, challenging the truth about this cities construction. However all respectable and reputable research indicates that the city was indeed constructed by the ancient Bantu ancestors of the Shona.

The demise of this once thriving civilisation is thought to have been due to a severe and continuing drought which made it impossible for the area to maintain human and animal populations (the Mutapa's controlled vast herds of cattle, goats and so on) as well as the exhaustion of gold and other mineral reserves within the cities outer areas which led its inhabitants to leave the area for pastures new. In addition to this  factional fighting in between the various sections of the polygamous royal households each time a Mutapa passed on progressively weakened the kingdom to a point where the eventual successor no longer had the national unity and loyalty required to fend of would be usurpers.

This link gives a more in-depth hypothesis on the cities decline.


You can read a bit more about Great Zimbabwe here and here.



In love of Africa.

Brotha Afritude