Expert answer:Great Zimbabwe Archeology Africa
Solved by verified expert:Unit 7 Discussion: Great ZimbabweFor over one hundred years, controversies have surrounded the archeological site at Great Zimbabwe. For much of the twentieth century, there was a debate about who built Great Zimbabwe, who should own the artifacts from the site, and, more recently, who should control access to its ruins. Delve into one of these controversies by posting to this discussion. You may want to read several of the sources posted, then choose ONE source to examine in detail by answering the questions under Step 1. STEP 1:In about 300 words, focus on one of the potential sources below and do all of the following:Explain the context of your chosen source (Consider: what can you surmise about the author’s background, when was the source was written, and how the source reflects attitudes prevalent when it was written)Identify the source’s point of view (Answer: What stance does your source take? How does the source’s stance relate to the debate?)Assess the source by addressing: How does your source try to legitimize its point of view? What is your assessment of its point of view?Potential sources to examine debatesII. What is the significance of Great Zimbabwe today?Webber Ndoro (2001)Garlake (2002)Joost Fontein (2006)Citations required! All posts require bibliographies AND internal citations (or footnotes). I recommend limiting yourself to our course’s materials (check the supplementary materials for useful information).
garlake_2002.pdf
joost_fontein.pdf
webber_ndoro.pdf
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By 2002, the academic community accepted the African origins of Great Zimbabwe.
Debates have continued about the purpose of certain structures and the religious and
cultural meanings of the site.
In this excerpt, the well-known archaeologist and art historian Peter Garlake analyzed
the structures to discuss their use and their meanings.
Garlake, P. Early Art and Architecture of Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002: 151-‐156.
The stone architecture of Great Zimbabwe
The immediate response of outsiders to the stone walls of Zimbabwe is that they
must have been built for defence. The most cursory examination, however,
disproves this: few walls achieve complete closure; many are short interrupted arcs,
easily circumvented; others surmount cliffs that are already inaccessible; and there
are no recognizable military features.
[…]
Symbolism and power
The power of the state is demonstrated by the monumentality of its structures.
They signify conspicuous expediture but they also speak primarily and directly to
the ability of the state to harness the manpower, energies, and skills of its subjects,
to coerce, organize, and manage them. These are monuments not only to the rulers
who inhabited them but to the numbers and loyalty, or at least the malleability, of
their subjects.
It is not almost universally accepted that the prime function of the stone
walls of all zimbabwes was to serve as symbols of prestige, status, or royal
authority. […]
Beliefs
To understand the real significance of the architecture one must focus on Shona
[ethnic group in Zimbabwe] belief. For the Shona, the dead of any family, especially
the male family head, remain a living presence, caring for the welfare of all the
family members, protecting them and interceding for them in all their problems
with the supreme god. Prayers and sacrifices are particularly important. The
control in perpetuity the land they occupied in life, tend its fertility, and bring rain to
it.
Land belongs to the ancestors. The current ruler ‘owns’ the land in trust and
it always remains inalienable. His secular authority derives from his power to
manage and allocate land. Land is experienced through its history, its past events,
and associations with particular ancestors. Most prominent natural features and
man apparently insignificant ones – hills, boulders, trees, and pools – may be replete
with atavistic associations. Many if not most such natural features had a powerful
historical, emotional, and spiritual significance, and delineated both current and
ancestral territories and spiritual realms. The forms of the zimbabwes re-‐created
these markers explicitly and emphatically. The zimbabwes embodies and asserted
the spiritual and ancestral basis for the rulers’ territories and authority. Occupation
of land creates bonds and exists on a spiritual plane. Occupants of land sacrifice, pay
tribute, and give some of their labour to the ruler.
A study of the last surviving network of traditional shrines in Zimbabwe
shows how the creator god, Mwari, speaks from sacred rocks and is embodied by
these rocks. The rocks are more than the medium of Mwari; they are Mwari. Thus,
through those who serve the shrines, Mwari regulates the world and human society,
makes seeds fertile, and brings rain in due season. […]
Another set of disagreements continues about (1) who should control access to the site
at Great Zimbabwe and (1) who are the real “experts” on Great Zimbabwe’s history.
Those themes are evident in the passages from a book by Joost Fontein, as quoted
below. Spiritual leaders of clans local to the site of Great Zimbabwe claim that Great
Zimbabwe was a spiritual center that was desecrated by European scholars and then
more recently by the Zimbabwean government. According to these local spiritual
leaders, this desecration has silenced the ancestors and destroyed the site. The local
spiritual leaders suggest that they themselves can serve as authentic mediums to the
ancestors and need to perform certain rituals to heal the site. They hope to restore the
spiritual meaning of the site.
Fontein, Joost. The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the
Power of Heritage. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc. 2006, 75, 82-83.
…For many historians and archaeologists and other scholars of the past,
archaeology remains the favoured route into Great Zimbabwe’s past. This has
resulted in the silence of unheard voices and untold stories of local communities
surrounding Great Zimbabwe…
…The silence of the ancestors and the Voice at Great Zimbabwe – this silence
of anger – represents the desecration and alienation of the site which began with the
arrival of Europeans at the end of the nineteenth century, and continues today.
Quoting Ken Mfuka, a historian from Zimbabwe:
And yet in returning the history of our people to themselves, we had to battle with
intellectual imperialism as well. Archaeologists who could not speak any African
languages insisted that there was no oral evidence worthwhile. Thus they arrogated
to themselves the role of chief interpreters of a culture they knew miserably little
about. We hope that we have delivered the first blow in that battle.
[…]
Quoting an interview by Aiden Nemanwa, a spiritual leader
…The new education and wisdom have brought strange ways and learning.
The ancestors are not fools. So they said: you have brought your ways and new
wisdoms. The new education came, wanting to dig into holy places, searching for
voices of our ancestors which spoke from the saves. They wanted to know why it
was that the implements and tools of the ancestors had to be returned ot the shrine
at certain times without fail. Where did those tools and implements come from?
The new wisdom yearned to know. The newcomers took those holy implements to
strange lands without asking anyone. Defilement. That was the way to defile the
stone shrines. All they saw and envied they took away. That brought the anger of
our ancestors.
That was the beginning of the silence of our ancestors. The silence of anger,
not happiness. From that day, they hid all those tools and wares which had
remained behind. They hid them in their ways, they took them away from the eyes
of those who remained. If the people came back and finessed their ways and
repented, promising to follow the ways of our people, the ways of respecting holy
shrines like Dzimbabwe [part of site of Great Zimbabwe], the ancestors will return
the revelations which they took away in anger and frustration.
When the silence came, it was the Year of Silence. Not many things were
said. There were many things which we could not figure out from the silence. It was
the silence of anger, not happiness or rest. The soil is sick. The earth cannot smile
at us.
[…]
The laws and rituals of the land have not been followed up to now, since the
return of the leaders. The only thing is that they gave to the country the name which
they had requested from the ancestors. The other rituals which they were supposed
to perform, they did not. The spirital leaders of this country do not know what
happened. The soil got annoyed. It was not the fault of the ancestors. It was not
only them who got angry. Even the spirits of the children who died in the land of
strangers are also angry. They cry to be returned to the soil of their birth.
The following thesis by Webber Ndoro examines the cultural value of Great Zimbabwe.
Excerpt from Ndoro, Webber. “Your Monument Our Shrine: the preservation of
Great Zimbabwe.” PhD Thesis, Uppsala University, 2001: 97, 99-100
7.3 Global and national values
The cultural value of Great Zimbabwe is clearly seen in the fact that the
country is named after it. More importantly even before independence the site had
been declared a National Monument. In 1937 on the recommendations of the
Commission for the Preservation of National and Historical Monuments and Relics
in terms of section 9 of the Monuments and Relicts Act, Great Zimbabwe was
declared a National Monument. This designation led to the transfer to state
ownership of the communally owned landscape and its associated resources.
Hunting, harvesting of forest products and religious rituals were then banned. This
led to the large-‐scale displacement of communities located in the designated area. It
also led to local dis-‐empowerment in regard to control of resource utilization
management and access to many parts of the cultural property. The traditional
taboos and rules of ensuring ecological balance were discarded and yet government
itself particularly after independence did not have the resources to enforce the
protective legislations.
Great Zimbabwe also provides a prime example of the past ingenuity and
achievement of Africans. As such Africans across ethnic boundaries regarded Great
Zimbabwe as an African heritage, it has become more than just part of a national
heritage but an essential part of the African heritage. It can also be argued that
Great Zimbabwe provided the liberation movements [from European colonization]
with inspiration.
The outstanding universal value of Great Zimbabwe was recognized in 1986
by inscribing it as a World Heritage Site under the UNESCO World Heritage
Convention. The Convention provides for the identification, protection,
conservation, and preservation of cultural and natural sites of outstanding universal
value. […]
Thus the cultural values of Great Zimbabwe have to be considered at various
levels: the local, national, regional and global and these do not always coincide. At
times they may be in conflict. Managing a cultural site involves resolving and
negotiating these seemingly irreconcilable values. Conflicting and ambiguous values
and interests in cultural resources emanating from the local, national and global
values also results in multiple jurisdictions concerning use ownership, access and
control of the heritage. For example the international conventions have to be
applied at Great Zimbabwe in order to satisfy its World Heritage Status. At the same
time the National Museums and Monuments of Great Zimbabwe’s protective
legislation act 25:11 has to operate at a national level together with all the other
national and district regulation. At each level access is continuously limited.
7.4 Analyses of values for Great Zimbabwe
It has to be pointed out at the outset that the administration National
Museums and Monuments usually blames the local community for not fully
appreciating the values of the site and they in turn accuse the government agent of
desecrating the monument. Whilst some of the cultural values for Great Zimbabwe
are assumed to be known, an assessment was carried out among the local
community, tourists and workers in the hospitality industry around Great
Zimbabwe. These groups were identified as communities who had a direct bearing
or link with the monument (stakeholders). Traditionally the Nemanwa and Mugabe
people [two ethnic groups in Zimbabwe] have had claims over custodianship over
the monument. However, given the long turbulent demographic history around the
monument it is now impossible to say that only these two groups have a legitimate
claim to Great Zimbabwe. […]
Cultural values: From the interviews it is clear that the local communities
view the places as one with social values particularly rituals associated with the
traditional belief systems. […] …it is the mudzimu and mhondoro [two spirit
mediums], which are important in relation to Great Zimbabwe. It is them who are
believed to have built Great Zimbabwe and still dwell there according to the local
informants. They lead all the traditional ceremonies performed at …
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