Blurs

Rising from the hills of southern Zimbabwe are the enormous stone walls of Great Zimbabwe. Built without mortar, some of its granite walls reach around 11 metres high. Massive stone enclosures, passageways, towers and carefully constructed structures form the remains of a sophisticated urban centre. But Great Zimbabwe has another story — one that is less about the people who built it than about the people who later refused to believe they had. For centuries, European writers and colonial authorities struggled to accept that a monumental stone city in sub-Saharan Africa could have been constructed by local African societies. Instead, alternative explanations were invented. Some claimed it had been built by Phoenicians. Others suggested Arabs, Egyptians or even the biblical Queen of Sheba. The archaeological evidence tells a very different story. What is Great Zimbabwe? Great Zimbabwe is a large archaeological complex in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its name comes from the Shona term dzimbahwe, ...