The Khame Ruins and Great Zimbabwe

We are back home now. But I can't leave this blog without including a post on these two excellent archeological sites in Zimbabwe. However, it is going to be a very short post, mostly pictures. There is a lot more information on google if you are interested!
     Before we left Britain I knew I wanted to visit Great Zimbabwe. I had heard of it as an enigmatic ruin in Zimbabwe, I thought of it as maybe dating from the middle ages. Peter had visited it as a boy with his brothers. At that time there was a widespread assumption among white people that Africans could not have built such an impressive structure (Peter's father had no doubt that they had, knowing the local Africans better than most whites did). They thought that maybe it had been constructed by the Queen of Sheba. All of that has been completely overturned by more recent historians and archeologists. The ruins date from the 11th century and were occupied until at least the 15th century.
     Neither of us had visited the Khame ruins. Oddly, because they are just outside Bulawayo and would have been an easy trip for Peter's family. His father had, apparently, thought them not worth visiting having been to Great Zimbabwe.
     We both learnt a lot from visiting these two wonderful places and enjoyed them very much. Carol at the Bulawayo Club Hotel had recommended Khame. Thank you Carol.

The Khame Ruins

We set out from Bulaway towards Khame, but got lost in what felt like a maze of streets in outlying townships. So we stopped to ask the way, and very nice man, Francis, offered to go with us as long as we brought him back to the same place. We wouldn't have found them without him, and as a bonus we all got on very well.
The ruins were down an unmade road. There were baboons and monkeys about. Suddenly the first of the structures appeared down the road, apparently right in the bush. Most impressive.



We found another set of ruins up a side road.











We continued to the small visitor centre where we were lucky enough to meet Norma who was the curator. She offered to take us round the site and was a very knowledgeable guide.













 Before setting out there was time to sit in the shade and enjoy the surroundings.

This is Norma showing us one of game boards that had been carved into rock. This kind of game is still played all over Africa.
The structure had been badly damaged just after the second world war. Treasure seekers destroyed some of it looking for gold. But now it is being painstakingly restored.







Another of the structures is the King's residence. The view from the top of it is impressive.

It was a huge site and we only managed to see some of it before we called it a day and had a picnic under the trees near the visitor centre.








 

 Great Zimbabwe

We had to fly from Harare, because we couldn't find a good enough flight from Bulawayo to Dar es Salaam. So we went via Masvingo, where Peter had been a small boy, and which is the closest town to the Great Zimbabwe ruins.



Great Zimbabwe is indeed very impressive. Again we only went to some of the structures. It's a very big site. We went up to the main structure where the king had lived. It was quite a long way up (as my face shows I think) but half way up, just outside the main wall, there was a wonderful view across to some lakes. The stair was very narrow and steep - and got narrower and steeper. We were glad to come down by a more recently constructed easier route!


The guide is showing us where the King sat when he wanted to summon one of his wives. The rock acts as a sounding board and the yodel echoes against the far hill.










You can just see the compound where the wives lived, just beyond the green bushes.










This rock formation at the top of the crack in the rock is apparently the origin of the Zimbabwe bird which is the national emblem of the country, appearing on the flag, bank notes, etc. The originals are kept in the museum where photography is not allowed.

The crack was used as a place to smelt, the smoke roaring up the cleft in the rock. It right at the top of the structure at the top of the hill.










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