Matthew returned from a Zimbabwe Botswana Game Tracker ZBa16. On this tour you visit the Great Zimbabwe Monuments and there are various idea's to what happened to this city.. Matthew had the following to share...
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe remain a mystery even to this day, despite the fact that they were first “discovered” by Europeans in 1871. They are the most sophisticated stone structure built in sub-Saharan Africa, prior to the arrival (or invasion) of Europeans. Set on top of a fairly high and fairly steep koppie, one can’t help but stop and wonder how the rocks were carted up there, or how long it took. We didn’t have to carry any rocks with us on our hike up, and we were still out of breath when we reached the top. Those builders must have had seriously impressive six-packs. The structure on the top of the koppie was the King’s royal palace. The view from the top was spectacular, and looked down upon some more ruins at the bottom of the koppie. It is in these ruins that the king’s 200 wives lived. That’s right, you read that correctly, I did not accidently add a zero to the end of that number. I don’t know how he remembered the names of all of his wives. As I said above, the king’s wives did not live on top of the koppie with him. The king lived alone, along with some servants. If the king decided that he was feeling lonely, and desired the company or pleasure of one of his wives, he would stand at a strategic point on top of the koppie, and yell out chosen wife’s name. At first I was wondering how she would hear him from all the way at the bottom of the koppie, but the acoustics are quite impressive, as our local guide demonstrated. Having been summoned, the chosen wife would have to hike to the top of the koppie, and do the King’s bidding. I do hope he gave her time to catch her breath first.
The ruins were abandoned in the late 18th century. Theories abound as to what happened. Death, starvation, disease? The current accepted theory is that the ruling king at the time decided to move his people to a more strategic trading location. If this is the case though, why were the Great Zimbabwe ruins never replicated at the kingdom’s new capital, wherever it was? If it was originally built by the Shona people, did they lose the skills and knowledge necessary to construct such stone structures? How could such a thing have happened? This could be explained away by saying that perhaps the Shona people weren’t the original engineers of Great Zimbabwe. Maybe it was the Portuguese or Arab traders that helped them?
These mysteries are what make the ruins of Great Zimbabwe a fascinating place to visit, and while you walk around there, it is perhaps worthwhile to ponder your own theory about the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe.
