Great Zimbabwe in Decline

1400

The stone-walled city on the Zambezi plateau, center of a gold-trading kingdom that had spanned centuries, was being abandoned by its royal elite. Overgrazing, deforestation, and shifting trade routes south toward Mapungubwe and later Mutapa emptied the site. Its dry-stone walls, meters thick, survived intact for five centuries. Portuguese traders later assumed no African civilization could have built such walls, a prejudice that persisted for centuries.