What Was the Purpose of Great Zimbabwe’s Monumental Stone Architecture?
From The Observatory
Lua error in Module:Article at line 50: attempt to concatenate a function value.
Introduction
The monumental stone walls of Great Zimbabwe represent the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa. Beyond serving as an elite center, the labor investment required suggests a complex social mechanism involving trade control, ritual authority, or political theater. The mortarless granite walls served as a physical manifestation of the power and lineage of the Shona kings who controlled the regional gold trade.
