We are used to thinking of Africa as a land inhabited by backward tribes who, before the arrival of Europeans in these lands, lived practically in the Stone Age.
However, this is not the case.
The place now called "Greater Zimbabwe" at least proves the opposite. The word "Zimbabwe" itself has two translations. The first is “stone houses” and the second is “houses of worship”. And both translations are the best fit for this beautiful monument of African architecture.
This city was founded around 1130 AD. e. one of the tribes of the Bantu people, which is considered the ancestor of most of the modern inhabitants of the continent.
Almost immediately after its foundation, the city became the capital of the ancient state of Monomotapa (aka Munhumutapa, Mvenemutapa), which occupied the territory of modern Zimbabwe and partly Mozambique, Lesotor, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and the Republic of South Africa.
The city was the trade and religious center of a very large power, which actively traded both with the neighboring tribes and states, and by sea - with the inhabitants of the lands north of the Sahara.
During its heyday, the city had from 10 to 18 thousand people. Mines flourished around the city, the country mined copper, iron and gold. Forges provided the processing of ore and the creation of iron products. During archaeological research in Greater Zimbabwe, not only numerous tools were found, but also works of art forged in a forge, which definitely indicates an unusually high (by the standards of neighboring neighbors) level of cultural development in the city.
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Another sign of high development is the very layout of the city. As in our penates (by the way, the first white-stone Kremlin in Moscow is slightly younger than the ancient city of Bantu), the city was divided into a fortified stone part, where important public places were located and the nobility lived and a wooden outer part, in which the poor lived.
Another thing is important here.
Archaeologists say that most of the stone buildings inside stone walls are temples. This means that the people who lived in this city had a highly developed abstract thinking and religious feeling. Poor hungry pygmies, as Africans are now imagined, would hardly have been able to build such structures.
There is a beautiful legend that the stone part of the city completely repeats the legendary buildings of antiquity - the temple complex is similar to the palace of the legendary Queen of Sheba from Jerusalem, and the "acropolis" - a beautiful castle on a hill - copies the Temple of Solomon, from the same place.
Some even thought of this place as the very mines of King Solomon, which were mentioned in the Bible.
250 meters of stone wall, stone towers and numerous buildings were erected without mortar, skillful hands on a fairly clear project. Suffice it to say that, like most famous ancient cities, Greater Zimbabwe was set up so that individual objects of the city allowed astronomical observations to be made.
Yes, the ancient Africans did not have a convenient and fast road to their northern neighbors, wheat and other grains did not reach them (and it’s not a fact that even if grain crops reached the Zasakharye, they would have taken root there) from which the ancestors of Europeans received cheap raw materials, which allowed making savings. But even such differences could not stop the development of civilization in this corner of our planet.