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Kingdom Of Zimbabwe
The Kingdom of Zimbabwe (c. 1220–1450) was a medieval Shona ( Karanga) kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its capital, today's Masvingo (meaning fortified), which is commonly called Great Zimbabwe, is the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa. This kingdom came about after the collapse of the Kingdom of Mapungubwe. Name The name "Zimbabwe" stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, a medieval city in the country's south-east whose remains are now a protected site. Two different theories address the origin of the word. Many sources hold that "Zimbabwe" derives from ''dzimba-dza-mabwe'', translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones" (''dzimba'' = plural of ''imba'', "house"; ''mabwe'' = plural of ''bwe'', "stone"). The Kalanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the modern-day province of Masvingo. Archaeologist Peter Garlake claims that "Zimbabwe" represents a contracted form of ''dzimba-hwe'', which means "ven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe is a medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwi and the town of Masvingo. It is thought to have been the capital of a great kingdom during the country's Late Iron Age about which little is known. Construction on the city began in the 9th century and continued until it was abandoned in the 15th century. The edifices are believed to have been erected by the ancestral Shona. The stone city spans an area of and could have housed up to 18,000 people at its peak, giving it a population density of approximately 2,500 per square kilometre. It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local monarch. As such, it would have been used as the seat of political power. Among the edifice's most prominent features were its walls, some of which are eleven metres high. They were constructed without mortar (dry stone). Eventually, the city was abandoned and fell into ruin. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umvukwe Range
The Mvurwi range of mountains is located in northern Zimbabwe. It stretches about 160 km from Lake Manyame, just west of Harare, north to the Zambezi Escarpment. Its high point is at about 1728 metres. It is an important chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ... mining region. Mountains of Zimbabwe {{Africa-mountain-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Zimbabwe
Until roughly 2,000 years ago, what would become Zimbabwe was populated by ancestors of the San people. Bantu inhabitants of the region arrived and developed ceramic production in the area. A series of trading empires emerged, including the Kingdom of Mapungubwe and Kingdom of Zimbabwe. In the 1880s, the British South Africa Company began its activities in the region, leading to the colonial era in Southern Rhodesia. Following the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 there was a transition to internationally recognized majority rule in 1980. The United Kingdom granted Zimbabwe independence on 18 April that year. In the 2000s Zimbabwe's economy began to deteriorate due to various factors, including the imposition of economic sanctions by western countries led by the United Kingdom and widespread corruption in government. Economic instability caused many Zimbabweans to emigrate. Prior to its recognized independence as Zimbabwe in 1980, the nation had been known by several names: Rho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danangombe
Danangombe (formerly Dhlo-Dhlo or Ndlo Dlo, alternative spellings Danamombe per National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, Dananombe and Danan'ombe) is a Zimbabwean archaeological site, about eighty kilometres from Gweru, in the direction of Bulawayo and about 35 kilometres south of the highway. It is not often visited due to the poor quality roads in the area. The remains on the site resemble those of Khami. Nearby are the smaller ruins at Naletale, that were occupied at the same time. The original name used by the Kalanga people is unknown as Dhlo-Dhlo (the name in Sindebele) was applied to the site later and it is unclear whether the name of Danangombe retains elements of the original name. Danan(g)ombe (together with Khami and Naletale) was one of the centres of the Rozvi culture, which had succeeded the Torwa. It is not to be confused with Danangombe Hill near Mutare. Layout The site consists of a ruined town dating from the 17th or 18th century AD, and therefore probably o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khami
Khami (also written as ''Khame'', ''Kame'' or ''Kami'') is a ruined city located 22 kilometres west of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe. It was once the capital of the Kingdom of Butwa of the Torwa dynasty. It is now a national monument, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. Context The settlement that we see today was a development of the architectural form that emerged at Great Zimbabwe in the 13th century AD and a local Leopard's Kopje culture that built platforms of rough walling on which houses would be constructed. Khami marks an innovation that recognised the environment in which was built. The area around Khami, being riverine, is hot and had problems with malaria. The stone found at Khami (laminar granite) was different from the ones found in other areas of Zimbabwe (biotite). With a mixture of dolerite, this stone was harder to quarry and produced shapeless building stone. It can be estimated that over 60% of the stone produced at these quarries would not be of build ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mapungubwe
The Kingdom of Mapungubwe (or Maphungubgwe) (c. 1075–c. 1220) was a medieval state in South Africa located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers, south of Great Zimbabwe. The name is derived from either TjiKalanga and Tshivenda. The name might mean "Hill of Jackals" or "stone monuments". The kingdom was the first stage in a development that would culminate in the creation of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe in the 13th century, and with gold trading links to Rhapta and Kilwa Kisiwani on the African east coast. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe lasted about 80 years, and at its height the capital's population was about 5000 people. This archaeological site can be attributed to the BuKalanga Kingdom, which comprised the Kalanga people from northeast Botswana and western/central southern Zimbabwe, the Nambiya south of the Zambezi Valley, and the Vha Venda in the northeast of South Africa. The Mapungubwe Collection of artifacts found at the archaeological site is housed in the Map ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult males are referred to as bulls. Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat (beef or veal, see beef cattle), for milk (see dairy cattle), and for hides, which are used to make leather. They are used as riding animals and draft animals ( oxen or bullocks, which pull carts, plows and other implements). Another product of cattle is their dung, which can be used to create manure or fuel. In some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious significance. Cattle, mostly small breeds such as the Miniature Zebu, are also kept as pets. Different types of cattle are common to different geographic areas. Taurine cattle are found primarily in Europe and temperate areas of Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Zebus (also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form ( native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from circa 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, circa 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental ( native state), as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia (a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), forming a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mineral
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Minerals'; p. 1. In the series ''Geology: Landforms, Minerals, and Rocks''. Rosen Publishing Group. The geological definition of mineral normally excludes compounds that occur only in living organisms. However, some minerals are often biogenic (such as calcite) or are organic compounds in the sense of chemistry (such as mellite). Moreover, living organisms often synthesize inorganic minerals (such as hydroxylapatite) that also occur in rocks. The concept of mineral is distinct from rock, which is any bulk solid geologic material that is relatively homogeneous at a large enough scale. A rock may consist of one type of mineral, or may be an aggregate of two or more different types of minerals, spacially segregated into distinct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivory
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same, regardless of the species of origin, but ivory contains structures of mineralised collagen. The trade in certain teeth and tusks other than elephant is well established and widespread; therefore, "ivory" can correctly be used to describe any mammalian teeth or tusks of commercial interest which are large enough to be carved or scrimshawed. Besides natural ivory, ivory can also be produced synthetically, hence (unlike natural ivory) not requiring the retrieval of the material from animals. Tagua nuts can also be carved like ivory. The trade of finished goods of ivory products has its origins in the Indus Valley. Ivory is a main product that is seen in abundance and was used for trading in Harappan civilization. Finished ivory pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
