January 18, 2017 • 29 mins
Great Zimbabwe was a massive stone city in southeastern Africa that was a thriving trade center from the 11th to 15th centuries. But when Europeans first learned of it in the 16th century, they were certain it wasn't African at all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We
touched really, really, really briefly on today's topic way back
(00:22):
when we did our condensed history of Rhodesia. It is
Great Zimbabwe, which is a huge stone city and what's
now southeastern Zimbabwe, and it's been on hind to do
list for that entire time. We also recently, I'm not
quite sure if the letters were from the same person
or if people were just copying and pasting the same text,
(00:43):
but we got multiple identical requests for it. There you
go from different email addresses, so uh, and moved up
the list after that. In a way, Great Zimbabwe has
multiple histories. Obviously, there is the history of its founding
and its construction and the people who originally lived there.
(01:04):
But then there's also this completely separate and one incorrect
history that European explorers and colonists sort of bestowed upon it.
And this was a history that insisted that Great Zimbabwe
in Southeastern Africa had not been built by Africans. So
today we're going to talk about the site itself and
(01:26):
how uh what we know about its construction and who
lived there, And then we're also going to talk about
these first colonial histories that were written about it and
how they were so colossally wrong and the damage that
came from that. Great Zimbabwe, which is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, was most likely inhabited all the way back
to the year one hundred, but from the eleventh to
(01:47):
the fifteen centuries it was a large, thriving city. And
the word Zimbabwe means the house in stone, though it's
also sometimes translated as sacred house or royal house. The
descriptor of great distinguishes Great Zimbabwe from smaller stone cities
in the area. It's one of about a hundred and
fifty major stone ruined sites in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. There
(02:11):
is some debate about exactly which sub Saharan African people
built Great Zimbabwe. The most commonly sited are the Shona,
who are a Bantu speaking people who migrated into the
area from the Sahara Desert sometime around the ninth century.
The Shona people still exist today, with a population of
between ten and thirty million living primarily in Zimbabwe. Mozambique,
(02:33):
but Tswana, Zambia, and the northern parts of South Africa.
There are multual, multiple cultural groups and dialects of the
Shona language within this population. Although Great Zimbabwe itself is
a ruin now, Shona people still living in the area
do view it as a sacred site and use it
for spiritual purposes. But there are other Bantu speaking people
(02:56):
suggested as Great Zimbabwe's builders as well, include the Venda
and the Lemba. Lemba burial traditions are similar to those
practiced at Great Zimbabwe, and they were also known for
being traders, and Great Zimbabwe was an active trading hub.
Even so, the Shonna are the most commonly sighted, and
in many discussions of Great Zimbabwe they're actually the only
(03:18):
people that get mentioned. The Great Zimbabwe Ruins as they
exist today, are roughly described in three areas. There are
the Hill Ruins or the Hill Complex, the Great Enclosure,
and the Valley Ruins or Valley Complex. The Hill Ruins
are along a very steep hill that rises two hundred
and sixty two feet, which is about eighty meters above
(03:40):
the surrounding landscape. The Hill Ruins were home to Great
Zimbabwe's ruling class, and through archaeological evidence we know that
the Hill Ruins were occupied pretty much continually from the
eleventh to the fifteen centuries. The Hill Ruins were basically
a royal city built from both shaped granite blocks of
natural boulders, regardless of which was used. They were built
(04:03):
without mortar and very narrow, sometimes covered passageways connected the
different structures. Two walled enclosures, which are both pretty large,
are part of the Hill Ruins. The west enclosure was
most likely where the chiefs lived. The East enclosures purpose
is a little bit less clear, although excavations revealed that
(04:25):
it contained a collection of soap stone posts about a
meter tall, all carved with are all topped with carvings
of birds, so it clearly had some kind of specific purpose.
It might have been religious or ceremonial, and these soap
stone birds are now known as Zimbabwe birds and they're
represented on Zimbabwe's flag and also many smaller versions of
(04:47):
these birds have been found on the site as well.
Also part of the Hill Ruins is a shallow cave
that was probably reserved for the use of the king.
In addition to providing shelter and a view of the
surrounding countryside. The shape of the cave and the surrounding
hills basically creates a natural p a system, so a
shout from the cave would echo from the hills and
(05:10):
be audible by anyone in Great Zimbabwe. The Great Enclosure,
which lies to the south of the Hill Ruins, is
the largest ancient structure in Sub Saharan Africa. It probably
served one of two purposes. It was either the royal
residence or a temple. So if the Great Enclosure was
the royal residence, then the Hill Ruins were sort of
(05:31):
the greater royal city where other uh people in the
ruling class lived, but not necessarily the king and his
immediate family. The Great Enclosure itself is encircled by a
huge elliptical wall that runs for eight hundred and twenty
feet that's about two fifty meters in places, flanked by
an inner parallel wall, and the walls are made of
(05:52):
granite blocks, and they're quite tall. Uh. The great wall
is thirty six ft, which is eleven meters ish at
the tallest. And these walls aren't wear it off or
rectangular at all. There actually a series of curves. The
builders of Great Zimbabwe built these curving walls out of
square and rectangular granite blocks. The granite slabs that are
(06:12):
part of the area's natural landscape split along straight lines
when you break them, which made it possible to shape
them into these regularly shaped square or rectangular forms. These
walls were built in curves by placing the blocks one
on top of the other and position so that the
wall itself would have a slight inward slope that would
(06:32):
help keep it stable. Even though these walls look quite imposing,
it's likely that they were built as a show of strength,
not as an active defense. Regardless of their purpose, though
they're a true feat of craftsmanship and engineering. Within the
Great Enclosure are smaller walls separating the living areas for
different families, and most of these areas include two living huts,
(06:55):
a kitchen, and a common area. One of the most
distinctive features of the Great Enclosure, besides that enormous and
impressive encircling wall, is a large conical tower, and its
purpose is unknown, but it resembles a grain bin. It's
thought to have had a religious or possibly symbolic purpose.
At both the Hill Ruins and the Grade Enclosure, there
(07:16):
are smaller structures like living quarters that were made from daga.
Daga is a type of earthen brick made from granite,
sand and clay. Originally, the data structures might have been
almost imposing as the stone walls are, but because they
were made of clay instead of stone, they've been subject
to a lot more weathering and decay over the centuries
(07:36):
that have passed that they were built. Today, most of
the Data structures have been reduced down to mounds rather
than being recognizable is what they were originally originally built
to be. The Valley Ruins, as their name suggests, stretch
out through the valley. They're newer than the rest of
Great Zimbabwe, with some of the structures dating as recently
as the nineteenth century, and these new structures are rick
(08:00):
rather than stone blocks. The Valley Ruins would have been
home to Great Zimbabwe's citizens, with the Great Enclosure and
the Hill Complex reserved for the royalty and upper social class.
From the eleventh to the fifteenth century, Great Zimbabwe was
an active, thriving, functioning city with a population of up
to eighteen thousand people, making it the largest city in
(08:23):
Southern Africa at the time. It's artisans and craftspeople were
particularly skilled at both stonework and making pottery. Many of
the artifacts at the site were carved soap stone, like
small statues, figures, decorated bowls, things like that. It was
also an agricultural society, cultivating crops and raising cattle, both
(08:43):
for food and as a symbol of the ruling classes wealth.
In addition, Great Zimbabwe, as we mentioned before, was a
huge trading hub, in part because it was positioned between
gold mines and the coast. Archaeologists have found beads, porcelain, glassware,
and other materials that came from China, Persia, and India.
(09:03):
There there are also coins from the Arab world. So
the trading network moving through Great Zimbabwe was enormous and
it extended far beyond Southern Africa. Eventually, Great Zimbabwe's residents moved,
and we will talk about when and why that happened
and what happened afterward. After a quick sponsor break, so
(09:28):
in the late fifteenth century, Great Zimbabwe was abandoned, at
least in terms of a society of people continually living there.
Over the course of the city's history, the area around
it had been deforested, and eventually there wasn't enough food
available to continue to continue to support its population. The
direction of trade had also shifted a little to the north,
(09:50):
which left Great Zimbabwe out of a lot of the
most commonly used trading routes. A series of civil wars
in the area may also have prompted people to relocate
as well. So while most or all of Great Zimbabwe's
population did relocate, it did continue also to be an
important site culturally from a spiritual and a cultural perspective.
(10:12):
Many of Great Zimbabwe's population relocated to the city of Kami,
and the Kami Ruins also still exist in Zimbabwe. Like
Great Zimbabwe, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site because
so many of Great Zimbabwe's residents moved to Kami, Kami's
construction and layout have some similarities to Great Zimbabwe's. The
(10:33):
same is true for pottery that was made at Kami
follows a lot of the same techniques as earlier work
at Great Zimbabwe, and Kami is basically a later creation
of the same culture that built Great Zimbabwe, and it's
the second largest stone monument in Zimbabwe after Great Zimbabwe.
Europeans started hearing about Great Zimbabwe in the sixteenth century.
(10:55):
One of those first sources was Huo to Barrow, who
was a poor part of US historian who chronicled Portugal's
history in Southeast Africa and parts of Asia. He wrote
of quote a square fortress masonry within and without, built
of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be
no mortar joining them. And even though he says the
word square, which Great Zimbabwe is definitely not square. This
(11:19):
is usually interpreted as being about Great Zimbabwe, probably based
on a description that someone gave to him, not something
he had visited himself. Word of this wonder started to spread,
mostly through trading ports in Mozambique. D Borrow and others
who heard about Great Zimbabwe suspected that it was an
(11:40):
important historical site, but they thought it was probably over
the site of King Solomon's minds. Soon, among European people
who were interested in such things, that became basically common
knowledge that somewhere in southeastern Africa were biblical ruins. So,
in eighteen seventy one German car All Mauch set out
(12:00):
on an expedition that he hoped would reveal the site
of oper In August of that year, he made up
with a German trader who described quote quite large ruins
which could never have been built by blacks. Mak hired
a local guide and then reached Zimbabwe on September five
of that year, becoming at that point the first European
(12:21):
known to have actually visited the site. While exploring the ruins,
he found some reddish, fragrant wood that resembled the wood
of his pencil, and he concluded that it was cedar
imported from Lebanon, and that it was an import brought
to the area by the Phoenicians, who he thought must
have built the site for the Queen of Sheba. Uh,
(12:43):
it was really sandal wood. It's not what he thought.
It was, just just one poorly identified piece of wood.
Really steered things completely off course. Yeah. His his theories
that great Zimbabwe is built by the Phoenicians and had
been home to the Queen of Sheba captured the attention
(13:04):
of Cecil Rhodes, who we talked about a lot in
our past podcast on Rhodesia. Rhodeses views were unquestionably steeped
in white supremacy, so when he went to visit the
ruins himself in the late nineteenth century, was described as
quote the ancient temple which once upon a time belonged
to white men. Rhodes in the British South Africa Company
(13:28):
then enlisted J. Theodore Bent to investigate. Bent had an
interest in the subject but no formal training, and, like
Rhodes and Mauch, approached the task from the point of
view that this city had to have been built by
white men. He visited Great Zimbabwe with his wife and
a man named Robert Swan who acted as a cartographer.
(13:48):
Before even getting to Great Zimbabwe, Bent and his party
passed through many of the other stone ruins in the area.
Bent even wrote that he added the word great to
the name Zimbabwe to distinguish it from all the other
smaller Zimbabwe's, but the presence of other similar ruins all
around Southeastern Africa didn't signal to him that Great Zimbabwe
(14:08):
was part of a building tradition of the people still
living in the area spanning over centuries. He continued to
approach Great Zimbabwe specifically as the work of outsiders, drawing
comparisons to ancient cities in Malta, Sardinia, and elsewhere in
the Mediterranean. Bent began an excavation that unearthed artifacts that
fit right into the context of African archaeology. Weapon points,
(14:31):
tools and pottery were all totally consistent with what should
have been expected of a Southeast African civilization. Bent thought
the Zimbabwe birds were meant to represent quote the Assyrian
astarte or venus, namely the female element in creation, and
he found it quote obvious that quote the ruins and
(14:52):
the things in them are not in any way connected
with any known African race. The objects of art and
special cult are foreign all to together to the country.
He concluded that the ruins and the furnaces that were there,
and the walls were all dedicated to the production and
the protection of gold. Bent's conclusion, quote a prehistoric race
(15:13):
built the ruins, a northern race coming from Arabia, closely
akin to the Phoenician and Egyptian, and eventually developing into
the more civilized races of the ancient world. The next
effort to study the site was downright damaging from a
physical perspective, not just a historical one. Richard Nicolin Hall,
(15:35):
a journalist, was appointed as the curator of Great Zimbabwe,
and what he was supposed to do was just preserve
the structures, not to do further study. Instead, he decided
to remove the quote filth and decadence of the site's
occupation by the local black population, and he removed and
discarded stratified archaeological deposits to a depth that ranged from
(15:58):
three to twelve feet. He was fired for this, but
unfortunately the damage of his efforts was done at that point.
You can't unring that bell. And he didn't even seem
to comprehend that anything that he had done was wrong
or damaging. He wrote or co wrote the books The
Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia and Great Zimbabwe, and he delivered
(16:22):
a lecture at the African Society on October twelfth, nineteen
o four, in which he described what he had done
as quote. Large areas of the ancient temples were cleared
of debris to a considerable depth, and the original floors
as well as ancient walls and other structures were disclosed,
while prehistoric relics were unearthed, which overwhelmingly proved the extensive
(16:42):
practice of nature worship of an exceedingly old cult. He
went on to express some chagrin that J. Theodore Bent
had only seen the ruins in their quote buried condition.
He really seems to have genuine genuinely thought that he
did the right thing. It was not the right thing
that that's how you do archaeology. You go in with
(17:04):
a vacuum, a mop and you take everything away. This
is one of the reasons we didn't have as much
to share about what life was like in Great Zimbabwe
in the first act of the show today. So many
of the archaeological findings that could have told us this
were destroyed by a man thinking that he was removing
quote the filth and decadence of the people who had
(17:26):
actually built the place and lived there, thinking it hid
instead been built by white people, then that the actual
artifacts were instead a contaminant. Most of the analysis made
of the site before the destruction actually happened were also
made by people working off of the assumption that what
they were looking at was relics from a Phoenician, Egyptian
(17:47):
or Greek civilization that had moved into Sub Saharan Africa,
not a sub Saharan African one. So while they were
people who did study of the site before this destruction happened,
that study was not archaeologically sound. Yeah, it was all
based on a completely incorrect presumption. But the record was
(18:08):
finally set mostly straight, and we're going to talk about
that after we first paused for a little sponsor break.
So although Richard nicklen Hall never seemed to grasp what
he had done, uh, the fact that he had done
real harm was completely understood by the British South Africa
(18:32):
Company and they then hired David Randall mc iver to investigate.
He he was an actual archaeologist, and his verdict was
that the ruins at Great Zimbabwe quote are unquestionably African
in every detail and belonging to a period which is
fixed by foreign imports, as in general medieval. So this
(18:54):
was in five. It was after Europeans had thought that
Great Zimbabwe was a biblical city built by someone not
from Sub Saharan Africa for hundreds of years, and that
it was a Phoenician city built for the Queen of
Sheba for decades. Another English archaeologists, Gertrude Cayton Thompson, confirmed
(19:14):
Randall mc iver's findings in and she wrote, quote examination
of all the existing evidence gathered from every quarter still
can produce not one single item that is not in
accordance with the claim of Bantu origin and medieval date.
The interest in Zimbabwe and the Allied Ruins should, on
this account to all educated people be enhanced a hundredfold.
(19:38):
It enriches, not impoverishes, our wonderment at their remarkable achievement.
For the mystery of Zimbabwe is the mystery which lies
in the still pulsating heart of Native Africa. The idea
that Great Zimbabwe was the work of white people rather
than Africans persevered, though white colonial governments in the region
(19:59):
were explicitly racist and they viewed the black population as
inferior and frankly incapable of building something like Great Zimbabwe,
talking about its real origins became at best a touchy subject.
During the period in which the nation was known as
Rhodesia and was governed specifically as a white supremacist state,
the government actively tried to suppress discussion of Great Zimbabwe
(20:22):
as an African archaeological and historical site built by africans
Ian smith. Rhodesia's Prime minister even commissioned a false history
to that end. Eventually, Zimbabwe became an independent nation with
the government that's more representative of its racial demographics, and
even so, Great Zimbabwe has continued to face obstacles as
(20:43):
a historical site at various points. People managing the site
have undertaken well meaning but poorly documented attempts to rebuild
fallen walls and you know other things that naturally happened
to hundreds of year old historical sites. After Zimbabwe became
a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which happened in nine, the
(21:04):
process of conservation and restoration moved to be much more
in line with modern standards, but even so it's far
from a perfect process. The spiritual and cultural significance of
the site to the Shona and other Bantu speaking people's
is sometimes at odds with its status as a historical site.
For example, that site is now overseen by the National
(21:26):
Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, which charges admission, which some
view as a desecration or a closing off of a
site that used to be open and alive. And the
nation of Zimbabwe has had ongoing issues with corruption and
hyper inflation. So even though it is a protected site,
there is still controversy that sort of broils around it. Yeah,
(21:46):
this is when I started working on this. I knew
because we mentioned it in our episode about Rhodesia that
it was so impressive that uh, like the white colonial
governments that arrived in the air area just assumed that
it could not have been built by people actually living
there um and instead cited things like Phoenicians or Egyptians,
(22:08):
which just to remind everyone, Egypt is also in Africa,
So like, like, I already knew that piece of it,
but I did not realize until I actually got into
researching what had happened that it wasn't so much just
just people got there and we're like, oh, that probably,
like at Phoenicians built that, But it was much a
(22:32):
much bigger effort to classify the site as something that
was both not built by Sub Saharan Africans and was
related to the Bible. That part was news to me
when I got into the episode. Do you also have
some listener mail for us? This is an email from
Mike because about the Winchester Mystery House after that part
(22:56):
of our Unearthed in episode where we ticked three some
things that we said, uh, we're really big names but
maybe not totally verifiable, and we talked about a news
article that had come out that we saw in several places,
but it all seemed to be referencing the same source
that a new room had been found in the Winchester
(23:18):
Mystery House and so my rights. I've been listening to
the podcast for about two years now and I love it.
I apologize in advanced for such a long email generated
by such a short mention on the podcast, but this
is something I'm very passionate about. Please feel free to
edit as needed if you read it on the air
and one of the recent Unearthed episodes, you quickly mentioned
that a new room had been found at the Winchester
(23:40):
Mystery House, but admitted that it appeared all the reporting
had come from the same initial writing. That's because the
initial writing was a press release from the company that
owns and runs the tourist attraction, and unfortunately, although it
was intended to be tongue in cheek, this release was
taken quite literally by most news outlets. What the release
was actually talking about was a new arcade shooting gallery.
(24:02):
They built one of those silly things where you use
a light gun, in this case modeled after a Winchester rifle,
and when you hit something, the item shakes, or a
song plays on the piano, or a light goes out, etcetera. Uh,
and then Mike goes into some personal detail about how
he knows this information, which I'm gonna skip. We will
leave to say he is a credible source, but in
(24:24):
the interest of his pipe privacy, I'm not going to
go into all that detail. And he says that there
is a possibility that there could be at some point
underneath the mansion, uh, something that had later been filled
in and excavated, but that otherwise all of the space
within the house itself is accounted for. They're not gonna
(24:45):
find a mysterious extra room because they know where all
of the things are. Um and then comes on with
some other interesting uh facts which he says, I also
have to tell you that the Missing History episode about
the Winchester House from several years ago fell victim to
the fact that of the information out there on the
subject is based on gossip and hearsay, even reports that
(25:07):
were contemporary to Mrs Winchester. Mrs Winchester was not a
devoted spiritualist. She may have practiced casually, did not fear
that the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles were
after her. She did not build the mansion to appease
said spirits. Instead, she was an architectural hobbyist with no
training who liked to experiment and someone who enjoyed employing
(25:29):
local people as a form of philanthropy. If you ever
wish to revisit the Winchester Mystery House, or if listeners
want to look into it, a great resource is Mary
Joe Ignafo's book Captive of the Labyrinth. Mrs Igna Ignafo
did extensive research and got all of the raw facts correct,
although she occasionally falters when forced to extrapolate in the
(25:50):
absence of documentation. For the hardcore local resources history, San
Jose is in in possession of two collections of photos
and documents, one for Mrs Winchester ranch foreman and went
from her lawyer. These papers reveal Mrs Winchester stud be
someone concerned with business and real estate affairs, family and philanthropy,
particularly her interest in keeping her uh generous giving anonymous,
(26:13):
not so much with sciences and spirits in the number
of thirteam. I'm not terribly bothered about the false information
always given about Sarah Winchester, because without the quirky stories,
the mansion probably wouldn't have been saved for posterity. But
I also want the truth to get out there. Thanks
for providing interesting topics for us with each new podcast,
I always look forward to the next one. Sincerely, Mike,
(26:35):
Thank you so much, Mike. That is delightful to learn. Yeah,
and and I similarly, Uh, I mean, I've never been
to the Winchester Mystery House, but I know it is
a very popular attraction, and so I can I can
sympathize with the idea that, um that the stories around it,
(26:57):
we're very attractive in having it preserves Yeah, for sure,
even though they there is some embellishment going on, That's
not uncommon for historical places. I mean, when we've talked
about allegedly haunted places before, you find out often that
the actual story is a little more mundane than what
usually you know, draws people's attention well, and it reminds
(27:19):
me a bit of you. And I went to Salem, Massachusetts.
Uh it was last year at this point, uh, and
we filmed some video at the House of Seven Gables,
which you can find on our website. But one of
the things that we talked about in that video is
how the uh, the book The House of Seven Gables.
Seven Gables was based on the house, but the house
(27:41):
didn't actually match up what was in the book. So
when the house became a tourist attraction, uh to support
the work of a settlement house in the area, So
it was a charitable effort. Um. It's some of the
work that was done on it, uh brought it more
into line with the fictitious representation of it. So it
was like a house and then a fiction and then
(28:03):
a slightly renovated house, a slightly renovated house that still
has like a lot of very true and accurate history
to talk about, but also has some things that have
been added on for the sake of having it be
a place that people who are interested in that book,
uh would want to come see. Yeah. Uh, those are
both things that led to preserving a site, not to
(28:26):
destroying it asked with Great Zimbabwe. So if you would
like to write to us about this or any other podcast,
we're at history podcast that how Stuff Works dot com.
We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash miss
in History and on Twitter at miss in History. Are
tumbler as miss in history dot tumble dot com. We're
on Pinterest and Instagram at miss in History. You can
(28:48):
come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff
Works dot com, where I think there's a whole thing
there about the Winchester Mystery House. Uh. And you can
come to our website which was missed in history dot com.
Do you find an archive of pret episode we've ever
done and show notes for the episodes Holly and I
have done. Uh. That video that we just mentioned, um
from the House of Seven seven Gables is there, as
(29:10):
well as three other videos that Holly and I made
after our trip in October. So you can do all
of that in a whole lot more at how stuff
works dot com or ms in history dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We
touched really, really, really briefly on today's topic way back
(00:22):
when we did our condensed history of Rhodesia. It is
Great Zimbabwe, which is a huge stone city and what's
now southeastern Zimbabwe, and it's been on hind to do
list for that entire time. We also recently, I'm not
quite sure if the letters were from the same person
or if people were just copying and pasting the same text,
(00:43):
but we got multiple identical requests for it. There you
go from different email addresses, so uh, and moved up
the list after that. In a way, Great Zimbabwe has
multiple histories. Obviously, there is the history of its founding
and its construction and the people who originally lived there.
(01:04):
But then there's also this completely separate and one incorrect
history that European explorers and colonists sort of bestowed upon it.
And this was a history that insisted that Great Zimbabwe
in Southeastern Africa had not been built by Africans. So
today we're going to talk about the site itself and
(01:26):
how uh what we know about its construction and who
lived there, And then we're also going to talk about
these first colonial histories that were written about it and
how they were so colossally wrong and the damage that
came from that. Great Zimbabwe, which is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, was most likely inhabited all the way back
to the year one hundred, but from the eleventh to
(01:47):
the fifteen centuries it was a large, thriving city. And
the word Zimbabwe means the house in stone, though it's
also sometimes translated as sacred house or royal house. The
descriptor of great distinguishes Great Zimbabwe from smaller stone cities
in the area. It's one of about a hundred and
fifty major stone ruined sites in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. There
(02:11):
is some debate about exactly which sub Saharan African people
built Great Zimbabwe. The most commonly sited are the Shona,
who are a Bantu speaking people who migrated into the
area from the Sahara Desert sometime around the ninth century.
The Shona people still exist today, with a population of
between ten and thirty million living primarily in Zimbabwe. Mozambique,
(02:33):
but Tswana, Zambia, and the northern parts of South Africa.
There are multual, multiple cultural groups and dialects of the
Shona language within this population. Although Great Zimbabwe itself is
a ruin now, Shona people still living in the area
do view it as a sacred site and use it
for spiritual purposes. But there are other Bantu speaking people
(02:56):
suggested as Great Zimbabwe's builders as well, include the Venda
and the Lemba. Lemba burial traditions are similar to those
practiced at Great Zimbabwe, and they were also known for
being traders, and Great Zimbabwe was an active trading hub.
Even so, the Shonna are the most commonly sighted, and
in many discussions of Great Zimbabwe they're actually the only
(03:18):
people that get mentioned. The Great Zimbabwe Ruins as they
exist today, are roughly described in three areas. There are
the Hill Ruins or the Hill Complex, the Great Enclosure,
and the Valley Ruins or Valley Complex. The Hill Ruins
are along a very steep hill that rises two hundred
and sixty two feet, which is about eighty meters above
(03:40):
the surrounding landscape. The Hill Ruins were home to Great
Zimbabwe's ruling class, and through archaeological evidence we know that
the Hill Ruins were occupied pretty much continually from the
eleventh to the fifteen centuries. The Hill Ruins were basically
a royal city built from both shaped granite blocks of
natural boulders, regardless of which was used. They were built
(04:03):
without mortar and very narrow, sometimes covered passageways connected the
different structures. Two walled enclosures, which are both pretty large,
are part of the Hill Ruins. The west enclosure was
most likely where the chiefs lived. The East enclosures purpose
is a little bit less clear, although excavations revealed that
(04:25):
it contained a collection of soap stone posts about a
meter tall, all carved with are all topped with carvings
of birds, so it clearly had some kind of specific purpose.
It might have been religious or ceremonial, and these soap
stone birds are now known as Zimbabwe birds and they're
represented on Zimbabwe's flag and also many smaller versions of
(04:47):
these birds have been found on the site as well.
Also part of the Hill Ruins is a shallow cave
that was probably reserved for the use of the king.
In addition to providing shelter and a view of the
surrounding countryside. The shape of the cave and the surrounding
hills basically creates a natural p a system, so a
shout from the cave would echo from the hills and
(05:10):
be audible by anyone in Great Zimbabwe. The Great Enclosure,
which lies to the south of the Hill Ruins, is
the largest ancient structure in Sub Saharan Africa. It probably
served one of two purposes. It was either the royal
residence or a temple. So if the Great Enclosure was
the royal residence, then the Hill Ruins were sort of
(05:31):
the greater royal city where other uh people in the
ruling class lived, but not necessarily the king and his
immediate family. The Great Enclosure itself is encircled by a
huge elliptical wall that runs for eight hundred and twenty
feet that's about two fifty meters in places, flanked by
an inner parallel wall, and the walls are made of
(05:52):
granite blocks, and they're quite tall. Uh. The great wall
is thirty six ft, which is eleven meters ish at
the tallest. And these walls aren't wear it off or
rectangular at all. There actually a series of curves. The
builders of Great Zimbabwe built these curving walls out of
square and rectangular granite blocks. The granite slabs that are
(06:12):
part of the area's natural landscape split along straight lines
when you break them, which made it possible to shape
them into these regularly shaped square or rectangular forms. These
walls were built in curves by placing the blocks one
on top of the other and position so that the
wall itself would have a slight inward slope that would
(06:32):
help keep it stable. Even though these walls look quite imposing,
it's likely that they were built as a show of strength,
not as an active defense. Regardless of their purpose, though
they're a true feat of craftsmanship and engineering. Within the
Great Enclosure are smaller walls separating the living areas for
different families, and most of these areas include two living huts,
(06:55):
a kitchen, and a common area. One of the most
distinctive features of the Great Enclosure, besides that enormous and
impressive encircling wall, is a large conical tower, and its
purpose is unknown, but it resembles a grain bin. It's
thought to have had a religious or possibly symbolic purpose.
At both the Hill Ruins and the Grade Enclosure, there
(07:16):
are smaller structures like living quarters that were made from daga.
Daga is a type of earthen brick made from granite,
sand and clay. Originally, the data structures might have been
almost imposing as the stone walls are, but because they
were made of clay instead of stone, they've been subject
to a lot more weathering and decay over the centuries
(07:36):
that have passed that they were built. Today, most of
the Data structures have been reduced down to mounds rather
than being recognizable is what they were originally originally built
to be. The Valley Ruins, as their name suggests, stretch
out through the valley. They're newer than the rest of
Great Zimbabwe, with some of the structures dating as recently
as the nineteenth century, and these new structures are rick
(08:00):
rather than stone blocks. The Valley Ruins would have been
home to Great Zimbabwe's citizens, with the Great Enclosure and
the Hill Complex reserved for the royalty and upper social class.
From the eleventh to the fifteenth century, Great Zimbabwe was
an active, thriving, functioning city with a population of up
to eighteen thousand people, making it the largest city in
(08:23):
Southern Africa at the time. It's artisans and craftspeople were
particularly skilled at both stonework and making pottery. Many of
the artifacts at the site were carved soap stone, like
small statues, figures, decorated bowls, things like that. It was
also an agricultural society, cultivating crops and raising cattle, both
(08:43):
for food and as a symbol of the ruling classes wealth.
In addition, Great Zimbabwe, as we mentioned before, was a
huge trading hub, in part because it was positioned between
gold mines and the coast. Archaeologists have found beads, porcelain, glassware,
and other materials that came from China, Persia, and India.
(09:03):
There there are also coins from the Arab world. So
the trading network moving through Great Zimbabwe was enormous and
it extended far beyond Southern Africa. Eventually, Great Zimbabwe's residents moved,
and we will talk about when and why that happened
and what happened afterward. After a quick sponsor break, so
(09:28):
in the late fifteenth century, Great Zimbabwe was abandoned, at
least in terms of a society of people continually living there.
Over the course of the city's history, the area around
it had been deforested, and eventually there wasn't enough food
available to continue to continue to support its population. The
direction of trade had also shifted a little to the north,
(09:50):
which left Great Zimbabwe out of a lot of the
most commonly used trading routes. A series of civil wars
in the area may also have prompted people to relocate
as well. So while most or all of Great Zimbabwe's
population did relocate, it did continue also to be an
important site culturally from a spiritual and a cultural perspective.
(10:12):
Many of Great Zimbabwe's population relocated to the city of Kami,
and the Kami Ruins also still exist in Zimbabwe. Like
Great Zimbabwe, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site because
so many of Great Zimbabwe's residents moved to Kami, Kami's
construction and layout have some similarities to Great Zimbabwe's. The
(10:33):
same is true for pottery that was made at Kami
follows a lot of the same techniques as earlier work
at Great Zimbabwe, and Kami is basically a later creation
of the same culture that built Great Zimbabwe, and it's
the second largest stone monument in Zimbabwe after Great Zimbabwe.
Europeans started hearing about Great Zimbabwe in the sixteenth century.
(10:55):
One of those first sources was Huo to Barrow, who
was a poor part of US historian who chronicled Portugal's
history in Southeast Africa and parts of Asia. He wrote
of quote a square fortress masonry within and without, built
of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be
no mortar joining them. And even though he says the
word square, which Great Zimbabwe is definitely not square. This
(11:19):
is usually interpreted as being about Great Zimbabwe, probably based
on a description that someone gave to him, not something
he had visited himself. Word of this wonder started to spread,
mostly through trading ports in Mozambique. D Borrow and others
who heard about Great Zimbabwe suspected that it was an
(11:40):
important historical site, but they thought it was probably over
the site of King Solomon's minds. Soon, among European people
who were interested in such things, that became basically common
knowledge that somewhere in southeastern Africa were biblical ruins. So,
in eighteen seventy one German car All Mauch set out
(12:00):
on an expedition that he hoped would reveal the site
of oper In August of that year, he made up
with a German trader who described quote quite large ruins
which could never have been built by blacks. Mak hired
a local guide and then reached Zimbabwe on September five
of that year, becoming at that point the first European
(12:21):
known to have actually visited the site. While exploring the ruins,
he found some reddish, fragrant wood that resembled the wood
of his pencil, and he concluded that it was cedar
imported from Lebanon, and that it was an import brought
to the area by the Phoenicians, who he thought must
have built the site for the Queen of Sheba. Uh,
(12:43):
it was really sandal wood. It's not what he thought.
It was, just just one poorly identified piece of wood.
Really steered things completely off course. Yeah. His his theories
that great Zimbabwe is built by the Phoenicians and had
been home to the Queen of Sheba captured the attention
(13:04):
of Cecil Rhodes, who we talked about a lot in
our past podcast on Rhodesia. Rhodeses views were unquestionably steeped
in white supremacy, so when he went to visit the
ruins himself in the late nineteenth century, was described as
quote the ancient temple which once upon a time belonged
to white men. Rhodes in the British South Africa Company
(13:28):
then enlisted J. Theodore Bent to investigate. Bent had an
interest in the subject but no formal training, and, like
Rhodes and Mauch, approached the task from the point of
view that this city had to have been built by
white men. He visited Great Zimbabwe with his wife and
a man named Robert Swan who acted as a cartographer.
(13:48):
Before even getting to Great Zimbabwe, Bent and his party
passed through many of the other stone ruins in the area.
Bent even wrote that he added the word great to
the name Zimbabwe to distinguish it from all the other
smaller Zimbabwe's, but the presence of other similar ruins all
around Southeastern Africa didn't signal to him that Great Zimbabwe
(14:08):
was part of a building tradition of the people still
living in the area spanning over centuries. He continued to
approach Great Zimbabwe specifically as the work of outsiders, drawing
comparisons to ancient cities in Malta, Sardinia, and elsewhere in
the Mediterranean. Bent began an excavation that unearthed artifacts that
fit right into the context of African archaeology. Weapon points,
(14:31):
tools and pottery were all totally consistent with what should
have been expected of a Southeast African civilization. Bent thought
the Zimbabwe birds were meant to represent quote the Assyrian
astarte or venus, namely the female element in creation, and
he found it quote obvious that quote the ruins and
(14:52):
the things in them are not in any way connected
with any known African race. The objects of art and
special cult are foreign all to together to the country.
He concluded that the ruins and the furnaces that were there,
and the walls were all dedicated to the production and
the protection of gold. Bent's conclusion, quote a prehistoric race
(15:13):
built the ruins, a northern race coming from Arabia, closely
akin to the Phoenician and Egyptian, and eventually developing into
the more civilized races of the ancient world. The next
effort to study the site was downright damaging from a
physical perspective, not just a historical one. Richard Nicolin Hall,
(15:35):
a journalist, was appointed as the curator of Great Zimbabwe,
and what he was supposed to do was just preserve
the structures, not to do further study. Instead, he decided
to remove the quote filth and decadence of the site's
occupation by the local black population, and he removed and
discarded stratified archaeological deposits to a depth that ranged from
(15:58):
three to twelve feet. He was fired for this, but
unfortunately the damage of his efforts was done at that point.
You can't unring that bell. And he didn't even seem
to comprehend that anything that he had done was wrong
or damaging. He wrote or co wrote the books The
Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia and Great Zimbabwe, and he delivered
(16:22):
a lecture at the African Society on October twelfth, nineteen
o four, in which he described what he had done
as quote. Large areas of the ancient temples were cleared
of debris to a considerable depth, and the original floors
as well as ancient walls and other structures were disclosed,
while prehistoric relics were unearthed, which overwhelmingly proved the extensive
(16:42):
practice of nature worship of an exceedingly old cult. He
went on to express some chagrin that J. Theodore Bent
had only seen the ruins in their quote buried condition.
He really seems to have genuine genuinely thought that he
did the right thing. It was not the right thing
that that's how you do archaeology. You go in with
(17:04):
a vacuum, a mop and you take everything away. This
is one of the reasons we didn't have as much
to share about what life was like in Great Zimbabwe
in the first act of the show today. So many
of the archaeological findings that could have told us this
were destroyed by a man thinking that he was removing
quote the filth and decadence of the people who had
(17:26):
actually built the place and lived there, thinking it hid
instead been built by white people, then that the actual
artifacts were instead a contaminant. Most of the analysis made
of the site before the destruction actually happened were also
made by people working off of the assumption that what
they were looking at was relics from a Phoenician, Egyptian
(17:47):
or Greek civilization that had moved into Sub Saharan Africa,
not a sub Saharan African one. So while they were
people who did study of the site before this destruction happened,
that study was not archaeologically sound. Yeah, it was all
based on a completely incorrect presumption. But the record was
(18:08):
finally set mostly straight, and we're going to talk about
that after we first paused for a little sponsor break.
So although Richard nicklen Hall never seemed to grasp what
he had done, uh, the fact that he had done
real harm was completely understood by the British South Africa
(18:32):
Company and they then hired David Randall mc iver to investigate.
He he was an actual archaeologist, and his verdict was
that the ruins at Great Zimbabwe quote are unquestionably African
in every detail and belonging to a period which is
fixed by foreign imports, as in general medieval. So this
(18:54):
was in five. It was after Europeans had thought that
Great Zimbabwe was a biblical city built by someone not
from Sub Saharan Africa for hundreds of years, and that
it was a Phoenician city built for the Queen of
Sheba for decades. Another English archaeologists, Gertrude Cayton Thompson, confirmed
(19:14):
Randall mc iver's findings in and she wrote, quote examination
of all the existing evidence gathered from every quarter still
can produce not one single item that is not in
accordance with the claim of Bantu origin and medieval date.
The interest in Zimbabwe and the Allied Ruins should, on
this account to all educated people be enhanced a hundredfold.
(19:38):
It enriches, not impoverishes, our wonderment at their remarkable achievement.
For the mystery of Zimbabwe is the mystery which lies
in the still pulsating heart of Native Africa. The idea
that Great Zimbabwe was the work of white people rather
than Africans persevered, though white colonial governments in the region
(19:59):
were explicitly racist and they viewed the black population as
inferior and frankly incapable of building something like Great Zimbabwe,
talking about its real origins became at best a touchy subject.
During the period in which the nation was known as
Rhodesia and was governed specifically as a white supremacist state,
the government actively tried to suppress discussion of Great Zimbabwe
(20:22):
as an African archaeological and historical site built by africans
Ian smith. Rhodesia's Prime minister even commissioned a false history
to that end. Eventually, Zimbabwe became an independent nation with
the government that's more representative of its racial demographics, and
even so, Great Zimbabwe has continued to face obstacles as
(20:43):
a historical site at various points. People managing the site
have undertaken well meaning but poorly documented attempts to rebuild
fallen walls and you know other things that naturally happened
to hundreds of year old historical sites. After Zimbabwe became
a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which happened in nine, the
(21:04):
process of conservation and restoration moved to be much more
in line with modern standards, but even so it's far
from a perfect process. The spiritual and cultural significance of
the site to the Shona and other Bantu speaking people's
is sometimes at odds with its status as a historical site.
For example, that site is now overseen by the National
(21:26):
Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, which charges admission, which some
view as a desecration or a closing off of a
site that used to be open and alive. And the
nation of Zimbabwe has had ongoing issues with corruption and
hyper inflation. So even though it is a protected site,
there is still controversy that sort of broils around it. Yeah,
(21:46):
this is when I started working on this. I knew
because we mentioned it in our episode about Rhodesia that
it was so impressive that uh, like the white colonial
governments that arrived in the air area just assumed that
it could not have been built by people actually living
there um and instead cited things like Phoenicians or Egyptians,
(22:08):
which just to remind everyone, Egypt is also in Africa,
So like, like, I already knew that piece of it,
but I did not realize until I actually got into
researching what had happened that it wasn't so much just
just people got there and we're like, oh, that probably,
like at Phoenicians built that, But it was much a
(22:32):
much bigger effort to classify the site as something that
was both not built by Sub Saharan Africans and was
related to the Bible. That part was news to me
when I got into the episode. Do you also have
some listener mail for us? This is an email from
Mike because about the Winchester Mystery House after that part
(22:56):
of our Unearthed in episode where we ticked three some
things that we said, uh, we're really big names but
maybe not totally verifiable, and we talked about a news
article that had come out that we saw in several places,
but it all seemed to be referencing the same source
that a new room had been found in the Winchester
(23:18):
Mystery House and so my rights. I've been listening to
the podcast for about two years now and I love it.
I apologize in advanced for such a long email generated
by such a short mention on the podcast, but this
is something I'm very passionate about. Please feel free to
edit as needed if you read it on the air
and one of the recent Unearthed episodes, you quickly mentioned
that a new room had been found at the Winchester
(23:40):
Mystery House, but admitted that it appeared all the reporting
had come from the same initial writing. That's because the
initial writing was a press release from the company that
owns and runs the tourist attraction, and unfortunately, although it
was intended to be tongue in cheek, this release was
taken quite literally by most news outlets. What the release
was actually talking about was a new arcade shooting gallery.
(24:02):
They built one of those silly things where you use
a light gun, in this case modeled after a Winchester rifle,
and when you hit something, the item shakes, or a
song plays on the piano, or a light goes out, etcetera. Uh,
and then Mike goes into some personal detail about how
he knows this information, which I'm gonna skip. We will
leave to say he is a credible source, but in
(24:24):
the interest of his pipe privacy, I'm not going to
go into all that detail. And he says that there
is a possibility that there could be at some point
underneath the mansion, uh, something that had later been filled
in and excavated, but that otherwise all of the space
within the house itself is accounted for. They're not gonna
(24:45):
find a mysterious extra room because they know where all
of the things are. Um and then comes on with
some other interesting uh facts which he says, I also
have to tell you that the Missing History episode about
the Winchester House from several years ago fell victim to
the fact that of the information out there on the
subject is based on gossip and hearsay, even reports that
(25:07):
were contemporary to Mrs Winchester. Mrs Winchester was not a
devoted spiritualist. She may have practiced casually, did not fear
that the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles were
after her. She did not build the mansion to appease
said spirits. Instead, she was an architectural hobbyist with no
training who liked to experiment and someone who enjoyed employing
(25:29):
local people as a form of philanthropy. If you ever
wish to revisit the Winchester Mystery House, or if listeners
want to look into it, a great resource is Mary
Joe Ignafo's book Captive of the Labyrinth. Mrs Igna Ignafo
did extensive research and got all of the raw facts correct,
although she occasionally falters when forced to extrapolate in the
(25:50):
absence of documentation. For the hardcore local resources history, San
Jose is in in possession of two collections of photos
and documents, one for Mrs Winchester ranch foreman and went
from her lawyer. These papers reveal Mrs Winchester stud be
someone concerned with business and real estate affairs, family and philanthropy,
particularly her interest in keeping her uh generous giving anonymous,
(26:13):
not so much with sciences and spirits in the number
of thirteam. I'm not terribly bothered about the false information
always given about Sarah Winchester, because without the quirky stories,
the mansion probably wouldn't have been saved for posterity. But
I also want the truth to get out there. Thanks
for providing interesting topics for us with each new podcast,
I always look forward to the next one. Sincerely, Mike,
(26:35):
Thank you so much, Mike. That is delightful to learn. Yeah,
and and I similarly, Uh, I mean, I've never been
to the Winchester Mystery House, but I know it is
a very popular attraction, and so I can I can
sympathize with the idea that, um that the stories around it,
(26:57):
we're very attractive in having it preserves Yeah, for sure,
even though they there is some embellishment going on, That's
not uncommon for historical places. I mean, when we've talked
about allegedly haunted places before, you find out often that
the actual story is a little more mundane than what
usually you know, draws people's attention well, and it reminds
(27:19):
me a bit of you. And I went to Salem, Massachusetts.
Uh it was last year at this point, uh, and
we filmed some video at the House of Seven Gables,
which you can find on our website. But one of
the things that we talked about in that video is
how the uh, the book The House of Seven Gables.
Seven Gables was based on the house, but the house
(27:41):
didn't actually match up what was in the book. So
when the house became a tourist attraction, uh to support
the work of a settlement house in the area, So
it was a charitable effort. Um. It's some of the
work that was done on it, uh brought it more
into line with the fictitious representation of it. So it
was like a house and then a fiction and then
(28:03):
a slightly renovated house, a slightly renovated house that still
has like a lot of very true and accurate history
to talk about, but also has some things that have
been added on for the sake of having it be
a place that people who are interested in that book,
uh would want to come see. Yeah. Uh, those are
both things that led to preserving a site, not to
(28:26):
destroying it asked with Great Zimbabwe. So if you would
like to write to us about this or any other podcast,
we're at history podcast that how Stuff Works dot com.
We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash miss
in History and on Twitter at miss in History. Are
tumbler as miss in history dot tumble dot com. We're
on Pinterest and Instagram at miss in History. You can
(28:48):
come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff
Works dot com, where I think there's a whole thing
there about the Winchester Mystery House. Uh. And you can
come to our website which was missed in history dot com.
Do you find an archive of pret episode we've ever
done and show notes for the episodes Holly and I
have done. Uh. That video that we just mentioned, um
from the House of Seven seven Gables is there, as
(29:10):
well as three other videos that Holly and I made
after our trip in October. So you can do all
of that in a whole lot more at how stuff
works dot com or ms in history dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot com.
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