Apart from its African wildlife, Zimbabwe is also famous for its distinctive and ancient culture. Greater Zimbabwe is believed to have been the main shrine and cult centre of the ancestors of the Shona (a people of the Bantu group). The city was founded c. 1130 AD and existed for two to three centuries. In ancient times it was the centre of the Monomotapa state, also known as the Great (Greater) Zimbabwean Power, Muene Mutapa or Munhumutapa. At one time it was believed to be the centre of King Solomon's famous mines. Many monuments of this ancient civilisation have been preserved in the country.
The monument, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986 and located 28 km south of Masvingo, has been known for its splendour since the 16th century, when Portuguese travellers made its existence known beyond the African continent. Spread over an area of 720 hectares, the ancient monument is a strikingly majestic architecture of ancient stones and is generally divided into three architectural complexes. The hill complex, or hill fort, is a series of stone walls forming an ellipse and clustered on an 80 metre high boulder.
The Great Walls are a massive structure about 255 metres in circumference, 10 metres high and in places up to 5 metres wide. Valley Complex - ruins located between the first two complexes, where an engraving of the Zimbabwe Bird, later to become the symbol of the country, was discovered.
These walls are the main remains of a large city inhabited in the 10th and 15th centuries, whose population is estimated to have been around 20,000. The city's population lived in thatched huts built on dagi (a mixture of mud and gravel), while the rulers and nobles lived in stone-walled structures.
