And again...........this both runs deep and is very complicated....

Kingdom of Zimbabwe

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This article is about the pre-colonial African kingdom. For the modern-day Republic of Zimbabwe, see Zimbabwe.

Kingdom of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
← 1220–1450 → →
Zimbabwe Bird
Capital		Great Zimbabwe
Religion		Belief in Mwari
Government		Monarchy
Mambo		Rusvingo (first)
		Unknown (last)
History
•	Abandonment of Mapungubwe for Zimbabwe	1220
•	Zimbabwe conquest of Mutapa	1430
•	Abandonment of Zimbabwe for Mutapa	1450

The Kingdom of Zimbabwe (c. 1220–1450) was a medieval kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its capital, Great Zimbabwe, is the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa.

C

Name[edit]

Main article: Name of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is the modern name issued to the most prominent pre-colonial civilization in southern Africa. The name is derived from one of two possible terms: the Shona (dzimba dza mabwe or "great stone houses") or Kalanga (Nzi we mabwe or "Homestead of Stone").

Origin[edit]

Although the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was formerly established during the medieval period, archaeological excavations in the region suggest that state formation here was considerably more ancient. In 1901, south of the Zambezi in the northwestern Shona (Makalanga) area, a ceramic ushabti was exhumed and presented to Carl Peters. According to Flinders Petrie, who subsequently examined the mortuary figurine, it had a cartouche on its chest that belonged to the 18th Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. In Petrie's estimation, this royal inscription and other regalia on the artefact confirmed that the object was a genuine ancient statuette of the king himself. The ushabti's burial further appeared to represent proof of commercial ties between rulers in the area and the ancient Egyptians during the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BC–1077 BC), if not a relic of an old Egyptian station near the local gold mines.^[1] Johann Heinrich Schäfer later appraised the statuette, and argued that it belonged to a well-known group of forgeries. After having received the ushabti, Felix von Luschan suggested that it was of more recent origin than the New Kingdom. He asserted that the figurine instead appeared to date to the subsequent Ptolemaic era (c. 323 BC–30 BC), when Alexandria-based Greek merchants would import Egyptian antiquities and pseudo-antiquities into southern Africa.^[2]
In the early 11th century, people from the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in Southern Africa are believed to have settled on the Zimbabwe plateau. There, they would establish the Kingdom of Zimbabwe (c. 1220).

Culture and expansion[edit]

Towers of Great Zimbabwe.

The rulers of Zimbabwe brought artistic and stonemasonry traditions from Mapungubwe. The construction of elaborate stone buildings and walls reached its apex in the kingdom. The institution of mambo was also used at Zimbabwe, along with an increasingly rigid three-tiered class structure. The kingdom taxed other rulers throughout the region. The kingdom was composed of over 150 tributaries headquartered in their own minor zimbabwes.^[3] They established rule over a wider area than the