津巴布韦王国

命名

“津巴布韦”（Zimbabwe）直译为“石头建成的大屋”，当中Zimba-为大屋的意思，-bwe意思为石头。广泛的考古证据还表明，该国各地的许多石墙建筑都具有精神意义，除了作为皇室或贵族的住处之外，还作为礼拜的场所。

经济及文化

津巴布韦王国控制着由非洲内陆至东南部海岸的象牙及黄金贸易路线。亚洲和阿拉伯的文物在该国各处到可以发掘出来。贵族们都靠圈养牛只至富。

穆塔帕的崛起

至少于15世纪起，穆塔帕地区（the Mutapa state）所控制的范围增至赞比西河、马佐埃河、鲁恩亚河和浑雅尼河的流域，以及穆尔维山脉。在大约1430年间，尼亚辛巴·穆托塔王子从大津巴布韦出发，北行至丹德地区，寻找食盐。他的军队击败了汤加和塔瓦拉，并在奇塔科昌戈尼亚山丘（Chitakochangonya Hill）立地为王，建立了穆塔帕王国。在一代人的时间里，穆塔帕王国超越了大津巴布，成为津巴布韦的经济和政治强国。至1450年，首都马斯温戈被弃城，津巴布韦王国正式瓦解。

后续

津巴布韦王国亡国之后，南北地区分别为穆塔帕王国和布图阿王国所占据，两者及后于18世纪一并被纳入洛兹维帝国。

The Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe was a Shona kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its capital was Great Zimbabwe, the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa, which had a population of 10,000. Around 1300, Great Zimbabwe replaced Mapungubwe as the most important trading centre in the interior, exporting gold via Swahili city-states into the Indian Ocean trade. At Great Zimbabwe's centre was the Great Enclosure which is thought to have housed royalty and had demarcated spaces for rituals, while commoners surrounded them within the second perimeter wall. The Zimbabwe state was composed of over 150 smaller zimbabwes and likely covered 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi).

It is unknown what caused Great Zimbabwe's decline and migration of the Shona to other places from the 15th century, however land depletion or a depletion of critical resources, increased regional competition, shifting trade routes, and overpopulation likely played a role. By the 16th century, the Mutapa Empire and the Kingdom of Butua centred on Khami had replaced Great Zimbabwe as the major powers in the region. Great Zimbabwe likely continued to be inhabited into the 17th century, before it was eventually abandoned.

Etymology

The Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe derives its name from its capital, Great Zimbabwe. The name "dzimbabwe" is Shona for "great house of stone", from the nouns 'dzimba-' meaning "great house" and 'ibwe' meaning "-stone". "Zimbabwe" derives from Zimba-ra-mabwe or Zimba-re-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones" (dzimba = augmentative noun of imba, "house";……

History

Origins and rise

The region had been inhabited by the San dating back over 100,000 years, and was inhabited by Bantu-speaking peoples from 150 BC, who from the 4th century AD formed various agricultural chiefdoms. An early settlement and predecessor was Gumanye. The site of what would become Great Zimbabwe had been occupied since 1000 by speakers of proto-Karanga (south-central Shona).……

Apogee

At its peak Great Zimbabwe covered 7.22 km2 (2.79 sq mi) and became a centre for industry and political power.……

Government

The state had a mambo as its sacred leader, aided by a designated brother or sister, along with an increasingly rigid three-tiered class structure. The kingdom taxed other rulers throughout the region, and was composed of over 150 tributaries headquartered in their own minor zimbabwes.

Society and culture

Great Zimbabwe was likely a centre for crafts and a place of great religious significance, however, unlike at Mapungubwe, rainmaking centres and cults were kept distant from the centre of power, and it was often entrusted to native members of particular regions. There was a mystical relationship between leaders and the land, and a link between leaders, their ancestors, and God.……

Economy

The Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe had a mosaic political economy which embedded production and circulation to address needs at individual, household, village, district, capital, and state levels within a multidimensional environment dependent on local qualities. This system later incorporated global trade, however imports were relatively minimal, and it was not solely responsible for the region's economic development.

Stone masonry

The rulers of the Zimbabwe Kingdom (known as mambo) cultivated and expanded dry-stone masonry traditions that developed across the Zambezi and Limpopo basins and are also evidenced at sites such as Mapungubwe. Skilled builders used locally available granite, which naturally fractures into regular blocks when heated and cooled, to construct terraces, enclosures, platforms, and free-standing walls without mortar.……

Historiography and the site

European antiquarians looted and pillaged Great Zimbabwe and similar structures from the 1890s to 1920s, greatly inhibiting the work of future archaeologists. Mired in racial prejudice, Rhodesians found it inconceivable that the structures could have been built be indigenous Africans, stipulating that archaeological discoveries of Persian bowls and Chinese celadon were the result of pre-Bantu settlement.……