The Great ruins of Zimbabwe are the largest and most important archaeological
sites in Africa and a World Heritage site. These lie south of famous Great
pyramids of Egypt and 30 kilometers from Masvingo city. The Great Ruins are extrely
impressive and mostly consist of crumbling rocks and meandering pathways, spread
out over a 200 square mile area, giving testimony to the lost civilisation of
the Shona. This amazing complex was constructed by placing rectangular granite
stones on one another without mortar. The ruins nowadays are spread out over
three main areas: the Hill Ruins, the Great Enclosure and the Valley Ruins. They
were discovered by the Portuguese sailors in the 16th century.
A great city existed here in the 11th century with over 10,000 inhabitants. The stone houses were the regions main trading center. Wealth was associated with gold, copper and ivory trading. Trade links extended to East Africa and fragments of Persian and Chinese pottery has been found at the site. Great Zimbabwe was once a powerful and wealthy state which flourished between AD 1250 to 1450, at its peak it contained more than twenty thousand people. Its wealth was founded by trading gold, copper and ivory to Arab Merchants on the Indian Ocean coast in return for beads, ceramics and cloth. The site was abandoned in the 15th century because of a lack of food and firewood. There were wars as dynasties tried to dominate this place, but when the civilization disappeared they left no record of a written language behind, which makes it one of the truly lost civilizations of the world
Among all ruins the Great Enclosure is the most extraordinary and impressive. It is a large stone enclosure with a maximum diameter of 89 meters with 244 meters long walls and up to 5 meters thick and 10 meters high. Towns close to this area (like Masvingo) are active mining districts producing a large variety of minerals including asbestos, lithium, gold and many more.
Close to the Great Ruins there is a huge natural habitat and wildlife reserve called Hwange National Park. It has a great elephant sanctuaries, a large reserve with black and white rhinos, beautiful large antelope, sable, kudu and eland and many more. It also has the largest concentration of leopard and black eagle in the world.
