The Great Enclosure is a walled, circular area below the Hill Complex dating to the 14th century. The walls are over 9.7 meters (32 feet) high in places, and the enclosure’s circumference is 250 meters (820 feet).
What was the purpose of the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe?
Because the Great Enclosure shares many structural similarities with the Hill Ruin, one interpretation suggests that the Great Enclosure was built to accommodate a surplus population and its religious and administrative activities.
What was the Great Enclosure?
The Great Enclosure, thought to have served as a royal compound, is the structure most identified with Great Zimbabwe. Nearly 100m wide and 255m in circumference, it’s the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa. The mortarless walls rise 11m and, in places, are 5m thick.
What is the great enclosure made of?
The Great Enclosure is composed of an inner wall, encircling a series of structures and a younger outer wall. The Conical Tower, 5.5 m (18 ft) in diameter and 9 m (30 ft) high, was constructed between the two walls.
Who really built Great Zimbabwe?
Pikirayi wrote that archaeologists have long since dismissed claims that Great Zimbabwe was built by Phoenicians, people from Europe or the Queen of Sheba. Today, scholars widely believed that Great Zimbabwe was built by the ancestors of the Shona and other groups located in Zimbabwe and nearby countries.
What was life like in Great Zimbabwe?
At its largest Great Zimbabwe had a population of between 10 000 and 20 000 people. Most of them lived far away from the main stone buildings, with only 200 to 300 royals and advisers living inside the main city, which was the centre of their society.
What led to the fall of Great Zimbabwe?
Causes suggested for the decline and ultimate abandonment of the city of Great Zimbabwe have included a decline in trade compared to sites further north, the exhaustion of the gold mines, political instability, and famine and water shortages induced by climatic change.
What led to the decline of Great Zimbabwe quizlet?
What factors might have led to the decline of Great Zimbabwe? The factors that might have led were overusing the resources or people shifting trading systems. … They benefited both groups because of the items being traded.
What was the religion of Great Zimbabwe?
The people of Great Zimbabwe most likely worshipped Mwari, the supreme god in the Shona religion.
Who Built Great Zimbabwe and why?
Begun during the eleventh century A.D. by Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for more than 300 years in a local style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves.
What does Zimbabwe mean in Shona?
The word zimbabwe, the country’s namesake, is a Shona (Bantu) word meaning “stone houses.” Ruins of the royal palace at Great Zimbabwe, southeastern Zimbabwe.
How did geography affect Great Zimbabwe?
Most of Zimbabwe is a high, rolling plateau. In addition, Zimbabwe has rich farmland, on which tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, and corn are grown, as well as beef cattle are raised on the veld. …
What were the geographical advantages of Great Zimbabwe?
What were the geographical advantages of Great Zimbabwe? Fertile land, cattle raising, by rivers for trade and water, etc.
Who was the leader of Great Zimbabwe?
He befriended another German, Adam Render, who was living in the tribe of Chief Pika, a Karanga leader, and who led him to Great Zimbabwe.
What was the controversy of Great Zimbabwe?
The “Zimbabwe controversy” is a name by which disputes over the origins of the people who produced stone ruins and mines in southern Africa are known.
How did Great Zimbabwe rise to power?
The mambos of Great Zimbabwe appear to have held some power over provincial chiefs in their dominion by loans of cattle to communities located farther afield from the capital and that may have struggled to feed their populace.