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MEANING:
The name “Zimbabwe” is variously
translated from the Shona language to mean “sacred house,” “venerated
houses,” “houses of stone,” “ritual seat of the king,” “court,” or “home or
grave of the chief.”
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
The civilization of Great Zimbabwe was one of the most
significant civilizations in the world during the Medieval period. European travelers from Germany, Portugal,
and Britain were astonished to learn of this powerful African civilization in
the interior of southern Africa. The
first European to visit Great Zimbabwe was a German geologist, Carl Mauch, in
1871. Like others before him, Mauch
refused to believe that indigenous Africans could have built such an
extensive network of monuments made of granite stone. Thus, Mauch assumed that the Great Zimbabwe
monuments were created by biblical characters from the north: “I do not think
that I am far wrong if I suppose that the ruin on the hill is a copy of
Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah and the building in the plain a copy of the
palace where the Queen of Sheba lived during her visit to Solomon.” Mauch further stated that a “civilized
[read: white] nation must once have lived there.”
Later
Europeans also speculated that Great Zimbabwe was built by Portuguese
travelers, Arabs, Chinese, or Persians.
No consideration was given to the possibility of local indigenous
Africans having built the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, because European writers
generally agreed that Africans did not have the capacity to build anything of
significance, particularly not monuments made with skilled stone masonry.
In 1890, British imperialist and colonizer Cecil Rhodes
(1853-1902) conquered a large portion of southern African and had the region
named after himself. Northern Rhodesia
(modern Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) came under British
control and Rhodes echoed the theme of Mauch as he argued that the Great
Zimbabwe monuments were build by foreigners.
To promote his goal of misrepresenting the origins of Zimbabwe, Rhodes
established the Ancient Ruins Company and financed men such as James Theodore
Bent, who was sent to Zimbabwe by the British Association of Science, and
sponsored by Rhodes. After his
investigation Bent concluded in his book, Ruined Cities of Mashonaland
(1892), that items found within the Great Zimbabwe complex “proved” that the
civilization was not build by local Africans.
In 1902, the British continued with their falsification
agenda as British archaeologist Richard Hall was hired to investigate the
Great Zimbabwe site. Hall asserted in
his work, The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (1902), that the civilization
was built by “more civilized races” than the Africans. He argued that the last phase of Great
Zimbabwe was the transitional and “decadent period,” a time when the foreign
builders interbred with local Africans.
Hall went out of his way to eliminate archeological evidence which
would have proven an indigenous African origin of Great Zimbabwe. He removed about two meters deep of
archeological remains, which effectively destroyed the evidence that would
have established an indigenous African origin of the site. He condescendingly stated that his goal was
to “remove the filth and decadence of Kaffir occupation.”
In 1905, soon after Hall’s destructive activity, British
archeologist David Randall-MacIver studied the mud dwellings within the stone
enclosures, and he became the first European researcher of the site to assert
that the dwellings were “unquestionably African in every detail.” After MacIver’s assertion, which was almost
equivalent to blasphemy to the British imperialists, archeologists were
banned from the Zimbabwe site for almost 25 years!
It was in 1929 that British archeologist Gertrude
Caton-Thompson led the first all-female excavation. Caton-Thompson investigated the site and
was able to definitively argue in her work, The Zimbabwe Culture: Ruins
& Reactions (1931), that the ruins were of African origin. She assessed the available archeological
evidence (artifacts, nearby dwellings), and the oral tradition of the modern
Shona-speaking people, and compared them to the ancient sites to determine
the African foundation of Great Zimbabwe.
Despite Caton-Thompson’s conclusive evidence, the myth of a foreign
origin of Great Zimbabwe continued for another half a century until
Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Ian Smith was the last major British colonial figure to
falsify evidence of Great Zimbabwe’s origin.
In November 1965, Smith had established a white minority government
that declared its independence from the British homeland government, and thus
this colony broke away from Britain to form an independent regime under
Smith. Ian Smith became “prime minister” of Southern Rhodesia. He continued the colonial falsification of
Great Zimbabwe’s origins by developing a fake history and a policy of making
sure that the official guide books for tourists would show images of Africans
bowing down to foreign innovators, who allegedly built Great Zimbabwe. It was not until 1980 that the native
Zimbabweans overthrew Smith’s minority government and ended the colonial era. In that year, Robert Mugabe became
president and the country was renamed “Zimbabwe,” in honor of the Great
Zimbabwe civilization of the past.
This distortion of the history of Zimbabwe has had an
enduring legacy. The colonial era
(1890 - 1980) had a destructive impact on the daily lives of native
Zimbabweans. Not only was their
heritage stolen, but the best farmland and resources were also taken by
British colonists. This 90 years of domination
and oppressive colonial rule was fueled by the ideas of Cecil Rhodes, who had
the greatest colonial scheme of any modern imperialist. Rhodes envisioned the British control of
Africa from the Cape of Good Hope in the south to Cairo in the north, thus
the slogan from “Cape to Cairo.” His
goal was to colonize the entire African continent and “to paint the [African]
map [British] red.”
Rhodes stated his colonial goals in his 1877 “Confession
of Faith”:
“We know
the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is
our duty to take it. It is our duty to
seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this
one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of
the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most human, most honourable race the
world possesses.”
Unfortunately, despite Rhodes’ disastrous impact on the
southern African region, he is buried (as he requested in his Will) in the
peaceful area of Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe. The local Ndebele people call this area Malindidzimu
(“the place of benevolent spirits”).
However, there is a current effort to have Rhodes’ remains removed
from the park. In 2004, Zimbabwe is
under the control of native Africans, and President Mugabe has instituted a
land reform policy to correct the crimes and theft of the past, as the
philosophy of “one farmer – one farm” is part of this policy. Nonetheless, this equitable land
redistribution program is predictably opposed by imperialists George Bush and
Tony Blair, as well as by British settlers such as Ian Smith.
THE FIVE BASIC
HISTORICAL QUESTIONS (5 BHQs)
ON
GREAT ZIMBABWE
The five Basic Historical Questions (5 BHQs) are a
fundamental set of questions that should be used to summarize and analyze a
culture or civilization. The answers
to these questions put the civilization in historical context and this gives our
research structure and meaning.
1. When Did the
Civilization Begin (Time Period)?
The civilization of Great Zimbabwe reached its zenith from
1100–1450 AD, although local Shona-speaking
farmers had settled in present-day Zimbabwe nearly a thousand years
earlier.
2. Where Was the
Civilization Located?
The location of Great Zimbabwe is in south central Africa,
in current-day Zimbabwe, between the Zambezi (north) and Limpopo (south)
rivers. The Great Zimbabwe site is
situated on a high plateau, mostly over 1000 m. (3,250 ft.)
3. Why is the
Civilization Important?
The Great Zimbabwe civilization is important for several
reasons:
- The
Zimbabwe site, featuring the Great Enclosure wall, is one of the most
astounding regions with monuments in Africa, second only to the Nile
Valley pyramid region.
The ancient plan of Great Zimbabwe is in two parts: the
hill complex and the valley complexes.
The hill complex is where the king kept many of his treasures. Although he lived in the Imba Huru
(or Great Enclosure) in the valley, he spent considerable ritual time
on the hill. Several important
enclosures exist within the hill complex.
The principles ones are the ritual enclosure, the smelting
enclosure and the iron-keeping enclosure.
The valley complexes are dominated by the Imba Huru. The height of the main wall of the Imba
Huru is about 32 feet, it is 800 feet long, and utilizes an amazing
15,000 tons of granite blocks. The
impressive blocks were constructed without mortar. The building of this complex took skill,
determination and industry, and thus the Imba Huru demonstrates a high
level of administrative and social achievement by bringing together stone
masons and other workers on a grand scale.
- The
extensive trading network made Great Zimbabwe one of the most
significant trading regions during the Medieval period. The main trading items were gold,
iron, copper, tin, cattle, and also cowrie shells. Imported items included glassware from
Syria, a minted coin from Kilwa, Tanzania, and Persian & Chinese
ceramics from the 13-14th centuries.
- Great
Zimbabwe was an important commercial and political center. In addition to being in the heart of
an extensive commercial and trading network, the site was the center of
a powerful political kingdom, which was under a central ruler for about
350 years (1100–1450 AD). The
site is estimated to have contained perhaps 18,000 inhabitants, making
it one of the largest cities of its day.
The conclusion is inescapable that Great Zimbabwe had a condensed
population sufficient for it to be considered a town, or even a
city. However, many Western
writers have attempted to reduce the significance of Great Zimbabwe by
several methods: by estimating low population numbers (e.g. only 5,000
instead of 18,000 inhabitants); calling the dwellings “huts” instead of homes;
calling the areas “villages” instead of towns or cities;
and identifying the rulers as “chiefs’ instead of kings. These writers are well aware that smallness
means less significance.
4. How Did the
Civilization Begin?
The Great Zimbabwe site was settled around 350 AD by Shona-speaking
farmers, who migrated into this elevated plateau region to avoid the tsetse
flies, which can kill both people and cattle by causing “sleeping
sickness.” The disease trypanosomiasis,
or more commonly sleeping sickness, is transmitted by the various
species of tsetse flies, which transmit the disease through their
saliva. The Great Zimbabwe site was a
safe haven high enough to avoid the flies, and this allowed the
Shona-speaking migrants to farm and raise their cattle. Eventually, developments led to the
formation of the Great Zimbabwe state at the end of the 11th
century. Two general theories
(technological innovations and intensified trading activities) have been
advanced to explain the rise of the Zimbabwe state.
5. How Did the
Civilization Decline?
Great
Zimbabwe declined and was abandoned around 1450 AD for unknown reasons. The migrants left Zimbabwe and founded the
northern kingdom of Monomotapa and other successor states. There has been much speculation about
Zimbabwe’s decline as theories of its fall have ranged from over-farming, the
population depleting the land resources, a drastic weather change, and a
decline in the important gold trade.
Further research will have to provide more information on this
question.
Much of the wealth which remained at Great Zimbabwe was
removed through the centuries by European explorers, treasure hunters,
souvenir seekers, and plunderers such as Richard Hall. The site is but a shell of what it once
was, as the artifacts were vandalized by these European groups and destroyed
or hauled away by them and eventually sent to various museums throughout
Europe, America, and South Africa.
Today, there are about 20,000 tourists who visit the site each year
and they continue to cause additional damage to the ruins, as these tourists
climb the walls for thrills and to find souvenirs.
A NOTE ON
SOURCES
- Written
Sources: There are no primary written documents
available regarding Great Zimbabwe.
- Oral
History: The oral history of the local
Shona-speaking people is a valuable source of information on Great
Zimbabwe, particularly the information this history provides regarding
spiritual beliefs and building traditions.
- Archeological
Evidence:
Most of the physical evidence of Zimbabwe’s history and significance is
derived from archaeological evidence from nearby dwellings, and various
items on site such as the trading items, daga homes, granite
walls, and soapstone figures of birds (which have become Zimbabwe’s
national bird and is part of the national flag). Modern Shona pottery has also been a
key source of comparison and documentation.
Additional Sources:
Molefi and Kariamu Asante, “Great
Zimbabwe: An Ancient African City-State,” in Blacks in Science (1983), ed. Ivan Van Sertima, pp. 84-91.
Graham Connah, African
Civilizations (1987).
Peter Garlake, Great Zimbabwe
(1973).
D.T. Niane, ed., General
History of Africa, vol. IV: Africa from the 12th to the 16th
Century (1984).
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