Lecture 14: Great Zimbabwe

what can “Zimbabwe” mean? (3)

• hose of stone

• venerated houses

• the court/home/grave of a chief

true or false: the Great Zimbabwe comes from the Zimbabwe culture/tradition

true: like Cahokia and the Mississippian culture

why is Zimbabwe heavily damaged and eroded? (2)

• 19th-20th century looting

• 20th century unpublished excavations (we still have the artifacts but we don’t know their purpose)

true or false: Great Zimbabwe was only a religious site

false: it was also a habitation site

why was there a moratorium established in the 1990s?

the government wanted archeologists to stop digging and focus on the already found artifacts (remap the site, put on chronological order the excavations)

less than 2% of the Great Zimbabwe was excavated. where in the site did we dig more?

at the centre

what was the geographic advantage of the location of Great Zimbabwe?

warded by two rivers and close to the indian ocean: close access to water = easy to trade with other communities

how high above sea level is Great Zimbabwe?

1km

where were the agricultural communities located!

on top of the plateau

true or false: Great Zimbabwe developed different regional polities

true

true or false: Great Zimbabwe was the only city descendant from Zimbabwe culture

false: there were other cites (unlike Cahokia)

who lived in Mapungubwe?

elite, but they moved to Great Zimbabwe once it collapsed

what are the current research focusing on at Mapungubwe?

craft production

what did we use to build the walls of Zimbabwe?

eroded granite from surrounding hills (easy to acquire and uae’

what are the characteristics of the walls? (2)

• stones were laid on top of each other without mortar (cement)

• concave: bottom is wide but becomes thinner as you go up (help with stability)

why can’t we do some carbon dating at Great Zimbabwe and what do we do instead?

• because we don’t have organic elements

• instead with do relative dating (seriation)

when was Khami founded?

after the decline of Great Zimbabwe (and gained control of the Indian ocean)

true or false: people still occupied Khami after its decline

true

true or false: Naletale’s elaborate architecture has never been restored

false: it has and it’s well preserved

true or false: we have writings from people living at Great Zimbabwe

false: they didn’t have a writing system (still considered as a city even though Childe probably hates our asses right now)

where does research data about Great Zimbabwe come from? (3)

• Portuguese accounts from Mutapa (succeeding city from Great Zimbabwe)

• ethnographic accounts from Shona people

• oral histories from contemporary Shona

• archeology

who are the Shona people?

people who lived in Zimbabwe centuries after it was abandoned. descendants

what’s the problem of using ethnographic accounts from shona people as research data?

they lived in Great Zimbabwe centuries later, so we can’t generalize everything from shona to zimbabwe

we believe that elite lived [inside/outside] the walled city of Great Zimbabwe while commoners lived [inside/outside] the walled city

• elite = inside

• commoner = outside

*idea today challenged

why is daga architecture badly preserved?

• walls were made of mud bricks (so when we dug, we thought it was only mud and dug through it)

• floors and seats were made out of clay

true or false: walls of daga were probably painted

true

the primary source of food was [agriculture/hunting]

agriculture

what were the types of plants eaten? (4)

• finger millet

• beans

• peas

• sorghum

why do we think that Great Zimbabwe didn’t rely on intensive agriculture?

because we found no irrigation system, they mostly relied on rainfall on flooding

how were taxes paid in Great Zimbabwe?

commoners paid tribute to their rulers in form of labour: you spend some times cultivating the lands of your ruler

why did elites have more cows than commoners?

to use them to trade with other villages to get food

true or false: herding wasn’t practiced in Great Zimbabwe

false: it was a key economic activity

how could animals be used? (3)

• for their meat

• for their skin

• in religious sacrifice

why is the idea that people ate more cows than other animals false?

• they actually deboned the animal on the kill site and left them there before returning to the site

• cows were killed at the village (meaning that it’s normal that we found more cow bone)

why wasn’t Great Zimbabwe affected by tsetse flies?

because it was quite high (1km above sea level), too high for the flies to reach the village

who was Carl Mauch?

• first European to visit Great Zimbabwe

• was obsessed with the bible and lost people

• believed that shona people couldn’t have built Great Zimbabwe and insisted it was probably egyptians or phoenicians (who were light skinned)

according to Carl Mauch, who bills the stone monuments of Great Zimbabwe?

king Solomon and Queen of Sheba

who was Cecil Rhodes?

• established british colony and controlled territory

• named the territory Rhodesia (after himself)

• involved in colonial administration

• became rich by developing mining companies (diamond and gold)

• looted many artifacts that he kept for himself (include a soap bird found on today’s flag’

who was Theodore Bent?

• hired by Cecil Rhodes

• archeologist hired to prove that pheonican or arab built zimbabwe

• believed that city was abandoned because they weren’t pure blooded enough to interact and reproduce with others

who was Richard Hall?

• hired by Cecil Rhodes

• journalist who excavated the site before becoming the curator

• excavated a lot and sold many objects

who was Gertrude Caton Thompson?

• female archeologist who worked with 2 female assistants not determine who lived in Great Zimbabwe

• dug the middle of the site (that was somehow still untouched)

• used stratigraphy and ceramic analysis to determine link between site and shona people

• findings were accepted pretty quickly

true or false: Thompson’s research were deprived of racists ideas

false: yes she was a woman but it was still in 1929

true or false: once the colony became independent from the UK, it immediately became the Republic of Zimbabwe

false: it was first became Rhodesia under white people authority before a 15 years civil war happened before it was independent and became the Republic of Zimbabwe

true or false: the soapstone bird is a political symbol

truen

who were Shadrek Chirikure and Innocent Pikirayi?

Zimbabwean archeologists

• Chirikure: focused on mining and metallurgy + remapped the site

• Pikirayi: geophysical projects (detect places that haven’t been studied)

during which period (I, II, III, IV, V) did Great Zimbabwe decline?

during 4, but we have a hard time distinguishing between III snd IV