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Kingdom of ZimbabweZimbabwe
13th century–16th/17th century
Zimbabwe Bird
Capital	Great Zimbabwe
Religion	Belief in Mwari
Government	Monarchy
Mambo
History
• Established	13th century
• Fall of Mapungubwe, rise of Great Zimbabwe	c. 1300
• Nyatsimba Mutota leaves to establish the Kingdom of Mutapa	c. 1450
• Abandonment of Great Zimbabwe	16th/17th century
Area
• Total	50,000 km (19,000 sq mi)
ISO 3166 code	ZW
Preceded by Succeeded by Gumanye Kingdom of Mapungubwe Mutapa Empire Kingdom of Butua
Today part of	Zimbabwe, Mozambique

Part of a series on the
History of Zimbabwe
Ancient history Leopard's Kopje c. 650 – c. 1075 Mapungubwe Kingdom c. 1220 – c. 1300 Zimbabwe Kingdom c. 1300 – c. 1450 Mutapa Kingdom c. 1430–1760 Butua Kingdom c. 1450–1683
White settlement pre-1923 Rozvi Empire c. 1660–1866 Mthwakazi 1840–1893 Rudd Concession 1888 BSA Company rule 1890–1923 First Matabele War 1893–1894 Second Matabele War 1896–1897 World War I involvement 1914–1918 Colony of Southern Rhodesia 1923–1965 World War II involvement 1939–1945 Malayan Emergency involvement 1948–1960 Federation with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland 1953–1963 Rhodesian Bush War 1964–1979 Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) 1965 Rhodesia 1965–1979 Zimbabwe-Rhodesia June–December 1979 Lancaster House Agreement December 1979 British Dependency 1979–1980 Zimbabwe 1980–present Gukurahundi 1982–1987 Second Congo War 1998–2003 Coup d'état 2017
v t e

The Kingdom of Zimbabwe was a Shona kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its capital was Great Zimbabwe, the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa, which had a population of 10,000. Around 1300, Great Zimbabwe replaced Mapungubwe as the most important trading centre in the interior, exporting gold to the Indian Ocean trade via Swahili city-states. The Zimbabwe state was composed of over 150 smaller zimbabwes and likely covered 50,000 km² (19,000 square miles).

It is unknown what caused Great Zimbabwe's decline from the 15th century, however land depletion or a depletion of critical resources, a decline in global trade, and increased regional competition likely played a role. By the 16th century, the Mutapa Empire and the Kingdom of Butua centred on Khami had replaced Great Zimbabwe as the major powers in the region. Great Zimbabwe likely continued to be inhabited into the 17th century, before it was eventually abandoned.

Etymology

The Kingdom Of Zimbabwe derives its name from its capital, Great Zimbabwe. The name "dzimbabwe" is Shona for "great house of stone", from the nouns 'dzimba-' meaning "great house" and 'ibwe' meaning "-stone". "Zimbabwe" derives from Zimba-ra-mabwe or Zimba-re-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones" (dzimba = augmentative noun of imba, "house"; mabwe = plural of ibwe, "stone"; ra/re = preposition for of).

History

Origins and rise

The region had been inhabited by the San dating back over 100,000 years, and was inhabited by Bantu-speaking peoples from 150 BC, who from the 4th century formed various agricultural chiefdoms. An early settlement and predecessor was Gumanye. The site of what would become Great Zimbabwe had been occupied since 1000 by speakers of proto-Karanga (south-central Shona). The settlement lay on the margins of mainstream developments occurring to its south from the 10th century in the Limpopo-Shashe Basin, where states and chiefdoms competed over gold and other goods for the Indian Ocean trade. In the 13th century Great Zimbabwe was on the fringe of the Mapungubwe state.

From the 12th century, Great Zimbabwe wrestled with other settlements, such as Chivowa, for economic and political dominance in the Southern Zambezi Escarpment. Agriculture and cattle played a key role in developing a vital social network, and served to "enfranchise management of goods and services distributed as benefits within traditional political and social institutions", while long distance trade was crucial for the transformation of localised organisations into regional ones. This process rapidly advanced during the 13th century, which saw large dry masonry stone walls raised, and by 1250 Great Zimbabwe had become an important trade centre. Gold production increased rapidly during this time. By 1300, trade routes had shifted north as merchants bypassed the Limpopo and Mapungubwe by travelling the Save River into the gold-producing interior, precipitating Mapungubwe's rapid decline and the dominance of Great Zimbabwe.

Apogee

At its peak Great Zimbabwe covered 7.22 km² and became a centre for industry and political power. At Great Zimbabwe's centre was the Great Enclosure which housed royalty and had demarcated spaces for rituals. Commoners surrounded them within the second perimeter wall, and its population was around 10,000. Great Zimbabwe dominated trade routes despite not directly controlling village-based mining and smelting, and engaged in the Indian Ocean trade via Swahili city-states such as Sofala. The state was composed of over 150 smaller zimbabwes, and likely covered 50,000 km². The institutionalisation of Great Zimbabwe's politico-religious ideology served to legitimise the position of the king (mambo), with a link between leaders, their ancestors, and God. The community incorporated dhaka pits into a complex water management system.

It is unclear to what extent coercion and conflict played in Great Zimbabwe's growth and dominance due to this being challenging to recognise archaeologically. While the Great Enclosure served to display prestige and status, and to reinforce inequalities between elites and commoners, it likely also served to deter contestation for political power amid the close linkage between wealth accumulation and political authority, with rivals for power, such as district chiefs and regional governors, located outside the settlement in prestige enclosures. The perimeter walls also likely served a defensive purpose, indicating warfare was conventional.

Decline

It is unknown what caused Great Zimbabwe's demise and its eventual abandonment. It is unclear to what extent climate change played a role, however Great Zimbabwe's location in a favourable rainfall zone makes this unlikely to have been a primary cause. Great Zimbabwe's dominance over the region depended on its continual extension and projection of influence, as its growing population needed more farming land and traders more gold. Shona oral tradition attributes Great Zimbabwe's demise to a salt shortage, which may be a figurative way of speaking of land depletion for agriculturalists or of the depletion of critical resources for the community. It is plausible the aquifer Great Zimbabwe sat on top of ran out of water, or the growing population contaminated the water.

From the early 15th century, international trade began to decline amid a global economic downturn, reducing demand for gold, which adversely affected Great Zimbabwe. In response to this, elites expanded regional trading networks, resulting in greater prosperity for other settlements in the region. By the late 15th century, the consequences of this decision began to manifest, as, according to oral tradition, Nyatsimba Mutota, a member of Great Zimbabwe's royal family, led part of the population north in search for salt to found the Mutapa Empire. It was believed that only their most recent ancestors would follow them, with older ancestors staying at Great Zimbabwe and providing protection there. To the west, Great Zimbabwe faced competition from Khami, the capital of the Kingdom of Butua. By the 16th century, political and economic power had shifted away from Great Zimbabwe to the north and west. The site likely continued to be inhabited into the 17th century, before it was eventually abandoned.

Government

The social institution had a Mambo as its sacred leader, aided by a designated brother or sister, along with an increasingly rigid three-tiered class structure. The kingdom taxed other rulers throughout the region. The kingdom was composed of over 150 tributaries headquartered in their own minor zimbabwes.

Society and culture

Great Zimbabwe was likely a centre for crafts and a place of great religious significance, however, unlike at Mapungubwe, rainmaking centres and cults were kept distant from the centre of power, and it was often entrusted to native members of particular regions. There was a mystical relationship between leaders and the land, and a link between leaders, their ancestors, and God. The mambo's first wife held authority over his other wives. Royalty initially lived at the Eastern and Western enclosures, with archaeological research uncovering ritual spears, gongs, and soapstone bird effigies. The public surrounded them until the space became too limited for the growing population and the royalty moved to the Great Enclosure, constructed throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. The Great Enclosure partitioned domestic and public spaces, the latter likely used for rituals. Similar to Venda tradition (who diverged from the Karanga in the 17th century), the Great Enclosure could have been used for circumcision rites and served as a pre-marital school for girls and boys, called Domba.

Nobles resolved disputes in a private court, while commoners resolved them in public. Common homes were built out of mud on wooden frame structures. Exotic goods found in the kingdom's region acquired local meanings in rituals, aesthetics, and status, such as Persian earthenware bowls and Chinese celadon. Metalworking and iron bloomery were in the domain of men. As the spiritual home of the Mutapa dynasty, in the 16th century the Mutapa king kept some wives at Great Zimbabwe, which served as the site for the masungiro ritual, involving the parents of both wife and husband.

Economy

The Kingdom of Zimbabwe had a mosaic political economy which embedded production and circulation to address needs at individual, household, village, district, capital, and state levels within a multidimensional environment dependent on local qualities. This system later incorporated global trade, however imports were relatively minimal, and it was not solely responsible for the region's economic development.

Great Zimbabwe's wealth was derived from cattle rearing, agriculture, and the domination of trade routes from the goldfields of the Zimbabwean Plateau to the Swahili coast. Cattle was important to the elites in the kingdom since their wealth came from the management of cattle. Salt, cattle, grain, and copper were traded as far north as the Kundelungu Plateau in present-day DR Congo. They had extensive regional and long-distance trading networks with central Africa, the Swahili coast, the Persian Gulf, India, and the Far East.

Stone masonry

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2024)

The rulers of Zimbabwe (called Mambo) brought artistic and stonemasonry traditions found across the Zambezi and Limpopo basins, including at Mapungubwe. The construction of elaborate stone buildings and walls reached its apex in the kingdom.

Historiography and the site

European antiquarians looted and pillaged Great Zimbabwe and similar structures from the 1890s to 1920s, greatly inhibiting the work of future archaeologists. The colonial government pressured archaeologists to deny that the structure was built by indigenous Africans, and the refutation of various fantastical and dehumanising theories, along with other activities of the antiquarians, dominated the historiography of Great Zimbabwe throughout the 20th century.

Local narratives, despite each clan claiming the site of Great Zimbabwe, are very similar in lamenting both the European antiquarians and the professional archaeologists for desecrating and appropriating a sacred site. They hold the government responsible for the "silence" and "closure" of Great Zimbabwe due to their refusal to "acknowledge the ownership and control of the site by the ancestors and Mwari".

See also

• Kingdom of Butua
• Kingdom of Mutapa
• Khami
• Danan'ombe

Notes

1. Some scholars contest that cultures and identities can't be considered fixed or invariable, especially over such a long time period.
2. A major factor involves the actions of European antiquarians and prospectors during the colonial period in the looting of the site, destroying its stratigraphy.
3. According to tradition, the move came about because the king was tired of eating salt made from goat's dung.

References

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Sources

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• Stewart, John (1989). African States and Rulers. Jefferson: McFarland. pp. 395. ISBN 0-89950-390-X.
• Wieschhoff, H. A. (2006). The Zimbabwe-Monomotapa Culture in Southeast Africa. Whitefish: Kessinger. p. 116. ISBN 1-4286-5488-7.

• States and territories established in the 1220s
• States and territories disestablished in 1450
• Former kingdoms
• Great Zimbabwe