11/17/2018 0 Comments Great Zimbabwe The city of Great Zimbabwe is in the south eastern hills of Zimbabwe, it is considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is made up of three sections; the Great Enclosure and the Hill & Valley complexes which all together make it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert and second oldest ruin in the southern half of Africa. Great Zimbabwe was constructed and lived in by up to 18,000 members of the Gokomere culture, ancestors of the local Shona people between 1000A.D and up to 1400A.D. The hilltop city is made from locally sourced drystone blocks that are visually akin to the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde in the USA as the Shona people constructed the buildings directly into recesses naturally available in the rock face. The colors of the materials used help the structures blend visually into the surrounding landscape and the living quarters and structures such as tower granaries do bear a striking resemblance to those found at the cliff dwellings of the Puebloans. Another similarity is that it too was abandoned in the mediaeval era due to drought.
Such is the historical significance of these ruins, that when the country became independent from Great Britain in 1980 it renamed itself from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe after this city.
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