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Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Great Zimbabwe is the name given to hundreds of great stone ruins spread out over a 200 square mile area within the modern day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins

During the thirteenth century, a great city of stone arose in the African interior. For more than three hundred years Great Zimbabwe thrived and grew as the capital of a vast gold and ivory trading empire

Great Zimbabwe ruins

great zimbabwe ruins Developing from a small settlement in the 8th century, Great Zimbabwe evolved into a powerful and wealthy city state which flourished between AD 1250 and 1450 and at its zenith contained more than twenty thousand people.

Its wealth was founded on cattle and subsequently trading gold, copper and ivory to Arab Merchants on the Indian Ocean coast in return for ceramics and cloth.

By the 15th century the city had fallen into irreversible decline and for the next 300 years was known only to the outside world by hearsay, inspiring wild and romantic speculations linking it with the Queen of Sheba and King Solomons Mines.

Today, Great Zimbabwe ruins is a World Heritage site and its massive curving walls, constructed from millions of granite blocks fitted together without mortar, remain the largest ancient stone structure in sub Saharan Africa.

At its peak, it was Africa's most eminent city with twenty thousand people living within sight of it's towering walls. Arab and Swahili merchants brought beads and textiles from the middle East and ceramics and glassware from Asia. Priests and prophets conducted rituals within the stone walls.

Wars were raged, art and architecture flourished, dynasties reigned and were overthrown. Then the civilization disappeared and left no record of a written language behind, which makes Great Zimbabwe one of the truly lost civilizations of the world

Great Zimbabwe is a mysterious ruin and the largest ancient stone construction south of the Sahara. The huge walls and tower, which are held together without mortar are some of the most extraordinary man made remains in Africa and were built between AD 1250 and AD 1450

30 kilometers from Masvingo this amazing complex is formed of regular, rectangular granite stones, carefully placed one upon the other, without the use of mortar.

Lofty, majestic, and timeless the quality of the building in places is outstanding

The two main areas of stone wall enclosures are

The Hill Complex

on the steep-sided granite hill and the land below this hill where the Valley Enclosures and the Great Enclosure are situated The Hill Complex, sits atop a granite dome that overlooks the rest of the site and consists of small enclosures separated by narrow, twisting passages

The Great Enclosure

is the most impressive and extraordinary of the stone remains and is a large stone enclosure with a maximum diameter of 89 meters. The wall is 244 meters long and, at its greatest, 5 meters thick and 10 meters high, capped by turrets and monoliths, where carved birds once perched. Inside is a large tower, the purpose of which is still a mystery.

Long after the buildings and cathedrals of Europe have fallen, the Great Tower will still stand as a testimony to a long dead civilization

Masvingo

Centre of an active mining district producing a large variety of minerals (asbestos, chrome, lithium, tin, tungsten and gold). Asbestos is mined at Mashava and Zvishane, gold at Renco and Bikita. The region has the largest source of lithium in the world