Great Zimbabwe: Unraveling Ancient African Urbanism
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159 cards
Question: What time period does Great Zimbabwe testify to as a major civilization in southern Africa?
Answer: Between the 11th and 17th centuries AD.
Question: Approximately how large an area do the remains of Great Zimbabwe cover?
Answer: About 720 hectares.
Question: What roles did Great Zimbabwe serve in regional and global contexts?
Answer: It was an important production and trading centre connected to central and southern Africa, the northern Indian Ocean, and the Far East.
Question: Which modern regions host the settlement tradition exemplified by Great Zimbabwe?
Answer: The Zimbabwe Plateau and adjacent regions of eastern Botswana, the middle Limpopo Valley of South Africa, and the Mozambican plains.
Question: How do Great Zimbabwe-type settlements compare to pre-11th-century farming villages in the region?
Answer: They were far larger, showed considerable internal functional differentiation, and demonstrated greater regional cooperation and integration.
Question: Why are the stone-built structures of Great Zimbabwe considered a conundrum to African urbanism(s)?
Answer: Because they are monumental, unique to that part of southern Africa, and challenge how to characterize such settlements within concepts of urbanism.
Question: What term did the Portuguese and local inhabitants use for the stone structures, and what did each imply?
Answer: Portuguese called them 'great stone edifices' and associated them with biblical figures; local inhabitants of Mukaranga called them simbaoe (zimbabwe,
Question: How did early European antiquarian investigators interpret features at Great Zimbabwe like the Hill Complex and the Great Enclosure?
Answer: They interpreted the Hill Complex as a copy of Solomon’s temple and the Great Enclosure as a replica of the Queen of Sheba’s palace.
Question: What role did the auriferous (gold-bearing) character of southern Africa play in historical interpretations of Great Zimbabwe?
Answer: It reinforced the idea that the region could be Ophir, the source of King Solomon’s gold.
Question: Which 19th-century investigator referred to Great Zimbabwe and nearby monumental structures as 'cities'?
Answer: Theodore Bent (1896).