In the territory of the Republic of Zimbabwe, there are more than 200 stone town sites, the largest of which is 320 kilometers south of the capital Harare, covering an area of 7.25 square kilometers, which is commonly referred to as the "Great Zimbabwe Site".
Zimbabwe means "stone town". The Great Zimbabwe site is located in a hilly terrain, surrounded by mountains on three sides and the scenic Lake Kaier on the back. All buildings are made of granite slabs 30 cm long and 10 cm thick, and although they do not use adhesives such as mastic and lime, they are very tight and solid. The Stone Town consists of three parts: a large enclosure in the shape of an oval, an acropolis in the shape of a fortress on the top of a hill, and a civilian area. The large enclosure is built on the mountain, the city wall is 420 meters long, 10 meters high, and the area of the city is 4,600 square meters. A small gate was opened to the east, west and north of the city wall, and a stone wall parallel to the city wall was added outside the southeast wall to form a passage 100 meters long and 1 meter wide. At the end of the passage there is a conical solid tower with two towering ancient trees next to the tower, which is said to be the "holy tower" used by royal sacrifices. There is a semicircular inner city in the center of the city, with a circumference of about 90 meters, which may be the residence of the supreme ruler of the royal family. Between the inner and outer cities, there is a group of buildings, connected by small walls, doors, columns, walls, and windows are decorated with exquisite relief patterns, which may be the place where the queen concubines and royal family members live. Most of the gates and pillars at the top of the stone pillars are carved with a bird resembling a pigeon and a swallow, known locally as the "Zimbabwe bird", which has now been established as the "national bird".
Zimbabwean birds carved from reddish soapstone
Exit the city gate and follow the stone steps to the 100-meter-high Acropolis. This is the vantage point of the entire site. The original castle was 7.5 meters high and 6 meters thick at the bottom, with a gate leading to the large paddock on the front and a cliff on the back. The fort has a small wall, dividing the building into many blocks, and there are many passages like a labyrinth, and the architecture and carvings are exquisite, not under the royal city.
The Acropolis of Stone City
No large architectural ruins have been found around the large enclosure and the Acropolis, but the foundations of the walls crisscross the walls, and there are remains of workshops, shops, warehouses, iron furnaces, houses, wells, tax districts, terraces, etc., and treasures such as Chinese porcelain from the Ming Dynasty, Arabic goldware, and Indian rosaries have been excavated. As early as the beginning of the 16th century, when the Portuguese invaded Mozambique, there was already rumor that there was a stone town in the west, but it was never confirmed. In 1868, explorer Adam Renders went hunting in Zimbabwe when he came across a huge castle while chasing a lion. He boldly broke into the city with a gun and found it to be an empty ruin.
The 12th~15th century was the most prosperous period of Zimbabwean civilization, and there were hundreds of settlements such as Great Zimbabwe Stone Town, and now we find only a small part of them. Due to the abundance of gold at that time and the rapid population growth, Zimbabweans seriously overspent on the environment, resulting in the depletion of natural resources, serious deterioration of the living environment, natural disasters falling from the sky, and Zimbabwean civilization quietly died before the arrival of European colonists.
In 1872, German geologist Karl Mauch sneaked into the site when he heard the news, and was caught by the locals to no avail. In 1877, he infiltrated again, drew maps, looted a large number of artifacts, and returned home to announce his "great discovery" to the world, saying that Stone Town was the site of King Solomon's gold mining as shown in the Old Testament.
In the 20th century, the British colonial authorities who ruled Zimbabwe took protective measures and organized several expeditions to conduct systematic research, which finally made the mysterious stone town clearer.
Between 2000 BC and early AD, the Phoenicians on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean crossed the Sahara Desert and settled in Zimbabwe, creating a series of stone cities. In the 15th century, Europeans began to enter southern Africa, plundering wealth and blacks, leaving Stone Town in ruins. Other theories exclude the "Phoenician creation theory", which believes that the stone town was founded by Europeans or by another "good" people to guide the African people. This alien people may be "extraterrestrial visitors", that is, aliens from outside Earth.
Since modern times, the use of radiocarbon to determine Stone Town and its excavations, as well as a series of other archaeological arguments, has basically denied the prejudices of some Western scholars. Stone Town was not settled until the 5th century at the latest, and became a large gathering point of a tribe in the Iron Age in the 10~11th century, and developed into a powerful national center in the 13th century. The most convincing evidence is the stone carving of the "Zimbabwean bird", which was worshipped for generations by a tribe in Zimbabwe and is still practiced by many of its inhabitants today. In addition, the separation of the royal city from the acropolis and the separation of power and religion is a typical custom in central Africa, and there is no external influence involved. In particular, a survey in seven provinces across Zimbabwe shows that there is indeed a tribe in folk oral legend who specializes in stone walls. In the 11th century, this tribe founded the kingdom of Makaranga, with its capital at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, and began to build the capital. It was later replaced by the Monomotapa Kingdom, which continued to expand its capital and reached its peak in the 15th century. Well, the fact that Stone Town is a "native product" is already certain.
Aerial view of the Great Zimbabwe Ruins: This site is one of the most distinctive ethnic buildings in southern Africa. Its discovery proves that there are indeed relatively advanced ancient civilizations in southern Africa.