Great Zimbabwe
Discover Great Zimbabwe — the medieval African city of massive stone enclosures that controlled the gold trade between the interior and the Indian Ocean coast.
Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a prosperous trading kingdom in southeastern Africa (modern Zimbabwe) that flourished from roughly 1100 to 1450 CE. Its most famous feature — massive dry-stone walls built without mortar, some reaching 11 meters high — represents the largest stone structures in sub-Saharan Africa outside of Egypt and stands as powerful evidence of sophisticated African urban civilization.
The city was the center of a network connecting the gold-producing regions of the African interior to the Swahili coast trading ports. Gold, ivory, and iron flowed east to ports like Kilwa and Sofala, where they were exchanged for Chinese porcelain, Indian glass beads, and Middle Eastern textiles. Archaeological finds at Great Zimbabwe include artifacts from as far away as China, demonstrating the reach of Indian Ocean commerce.
At its peak, Great Zimbabwe may have housed 18,000 people. The Great Enclosure — an elliptical wall 250 meters in circumference — was likely a royal residence or ritual center. The city's decline in the mid-15th century was probably caused by environmental degradation, as the large population exhausted local resources. When European colonizers encountered the ruins in the 19th century, they refused to believe Africans could have built them — a racist denial that Zimbabwe's name, independence, and national identity would eventually correct.