The
Kingdom of Mapungubwe (1075-1220) was pre-colonial Southern African state located at the confluence of the
ShasheThe Shashe River is a major left-bank tributary of the Limpopo River in Zimbabwe.It rises northwest of Francistown, Botswana and flows into the Limpopo River where Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet, site of the Shalimpo Transfrontier Conservation Area.- Hydrology :The Shashe River is a...
and
LimpopoThe Limpopo River rises in central southern Africa, and flows generally eastwards to the Indian Ocean. It is around long, with a drainage basin in size. Its mean annual discharge is 174.288 m³/s at its mouth...
rivers , south of
Great ZimbabweThe Great Zimbabwe, or "stone buildings", is the name given to the stone ruins spread out over a 722 hectare area within the modern-day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins. It is near the town of Masvingo, which before majority rule was called Fort Victoria...
. It marked the center of a pre-
ShonaShona is the name collectively given to several groups of people in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique. Numbering about nine million people, who speak a range of related dialects whose standardized form is also known as Shona ....
kingdom which covered parts of modern-day
BotswanaThe Republic of Botswana is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
and
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
. The kingdom was the first stage in a development that would culminate in the creation of the
Kingdom of ZimbabweThe Kingdom of Zimbabwe was a medieval kingdom of the Shona people. It is famous for its capital, Great Zimbabwe, the largest stone structure in southern Africa until recent times.- Etymology :...
in the
13th centuryAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era...
.
The kingdom of Mapungubwe came from a Bantu cattle culture.
The
Kingdom of Mapungubwe (1075-1220) was pre-colonial Southern African state located at the confluence of the
ShasheThe Shashe River is a major left-bank tributary of the Limpopo River in Zimbabwe.It rises northwest of Francistown, Botswana and flows into the Limpopo River where Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet, site of the Shalimpo Transfrontier Conservation Area.- Hydrology :The Shashe River is a...
and
LimpopoThe Limpopo River rises in central southern Africa, and flows generally eastwards to the Indian Ocean. It is around long, with a drainage basin in size. Its mean annual discharge is 174.288 m³/s at its mouth...
rivers , south of
Great ZimbabweThe Great Zimbabwe, or "stone buildings", is the name given to the stone ruins spread out over a 722 hectare area within the modern-day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins. It is near the town of Masvingo, which before majority rule was called Fort Victoria...
. It marked the center of a pre-
ShonaShona is the name collectively given to several groups of people in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique. Numbering about nine million people, who speak a range of related dialects whose standardized form is also known as Shona ....
kingdom which covered parts of modern-day
BotswanaThe Republic of Botswana is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
and
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
. The kingdom was the first stage in a development that would culminate in the creation of the
Kingdom of ZimbabweThe Kingdom of Zimbabwe was a medieval kingdom of the Shona people. It is famous for its capital, Great Zimbabwe, the largest stone structure in southern Africa until recent times.- Etymology :...
in the
13th centuryAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era...
.
Origin
The kingdom of Mapungubwe came from a Bantu cattle culture. The largest settlement from what has been dubbed Leopold’s Kopje culture is known as K2 and was the immediate predecessor to the settlement of Mapungubwe. The people from K2 were attracted to the Shashi-Limpopo area, likely because it provided mixed agricultural possibilities. The area was also prime elephant country, providing access to valuable ivory. The control of the gold and ivory trade greatly increased the political power of the K2 culture. By 1075, the population of K2 had outgrown the area and relocated to Mapungubwe Hill.
Stone Masonry
Spatial organization in the kingdom of Mapungubwe involved the use of stone walls to demarcate important areas for the first time. There was a stone-walled residence next to the court at the base of Mapungubwe Hill, likely occupied by the principal councilor. Stone and wood were used together. There would have also been a wooden palisade surrounding Mapungubwe Hill. Most of the capital’s population would have lived inside the western wall.
Government
The capital of the kingdom was called Mapungubwe, which is where the kingdom gets its name. The site of the city is now a
World Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term.A World Heritage Site is a...
,
national parkA national park is a reserve of natural or semi-natural land, declared or owned by a national government, set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, and protected from most development...
, and archaeological site. Mapungubwe means "place where jackals eat", derived from
phunguwe (
VendaVenda, also known as ', or ', is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. The majority of Venda speakers live in South Africa, but there are also speakers in Zimbabwe...
for jackal), as the hill was littered with human bones which attracted these scavengers. It is a
sandstoneSandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow,...
hill, with vertical cliffs about 30
metreThe metre or meter is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units . Historically, the metre was defined by the French Academy of Sciences as the length between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar, which was designed to represent one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator...
s high and a plateaued top approximately 300 m in length. There was a natural
amphitheatreAn amphitheatre is an open-air venue for spectator sports, concerts, rallies, or theatrical performances. There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word 'amphitheatre' is used: Ancient amphitheatres, built by the ancient Romans, were large central performance spaces...
at the bottom of Mapungubwe Hill where the royal court was likely held. However, the king actually lived inside a stone enclosure on a hill above the court. Aside from the king, there was principal councilor who organized cases to be heard by the royal court as well audiences before the king.
Culture & Society
Mapungubwean society was "the most complex in southern Africa". It is thought by archaeologists to be the first class-based social system in southern Africa; that is, its leaders were separated from and higher in rank than its inhabitants.
Life in Mapungubwe was centered around family and farming. Special sites were created for initiation ceremonies, household activities, and other social functions. Cattle lived in
kraalKraal is an Afrikaans and South African English word for an enclosure for cattle or other livestock, located within an African homestead or village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall, or other fencing, roughly circular in form.In the Dutch language a kraal is a term derived from the Portuguese...
s located close to the residents' houses, signifying their value.
Most speculation about society continues to be based upon the remains of buildings, since the Mapungubweans left no written or oral record.
The kingdom was likely divided into a three-tiered hierarchy with the commoners inhabiting low-lying sites, district leaders occupying small hilltops and the capital at Mapungubwe hill as the supreme authority.
Elites within the kingdom were buried in hills. Royal wives lived in their own area away from the king. Important men maintained prestigious homes on the outskirts of the capital. This type of spatial division occurred first at Mapungubwe but would be replicated in later proto-Shona and Shona states. The growth in population at Mapungubwe may have led to full-time specialists in ceramics, specifically pottery. Gold objects were uncovered in elite burials on the royal hill.
Re-Discovery
After Mapungubwe's fall, it was forgotten until 1932. On
New Year's EveNew Year's Eve or Old Year's Night is on , the final day of the Gregorian year, and the day before New Year's Day.New Year's Eve is a separate observance from the observance of New Year's Day...
1932, E. S. J. van Graan, a local farmer and prospector, and his son, a former student of the
University of PretoriaThe University of Pretoria is a public university in Pretoria,the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. Since 1997 the university has produced more research outputs every year than any other institution of higher learning in the country, as measured by the Department of Education's...
, discovered the wealth of artifacts on top of the hill. They reported the find to Professor Leo Fouché of the University of Pretoria, paving the way for excavations that continue to this day.Although the University of Pretoria excavated the site ever since 1932 it was kept top secret. The findings provided evidence contrary to the racist ideology of black inferiority that underpinned apartheid. The government did not wish to let the public see these artifacts or know anything about the Mapungubwe site, so all the items where confiscated and locked away.Until 2002 when the University of Pretoria was under going renovations that a large number of the artifacts collected where subsequently found locked away and forgotten in a storage room, the architect contracted to do the renovations at the University of Pretoria, Mr Moorrees Janse van Rensburg came across this room and had to break through the door as the keys were nowhere to be found and no one had any knowledge of what was in the room. It appeared that this was a secrete that was purposely withheld from the South African public.
When Mr van Rensburg broke the door open he found a room filled with small boxes, in those boxes were priceless gold artifacts that came from the original site. It is still a mystery how these artifacts ended up at the University and when they arrived, but the fact remains that these were deliberately kept from the public eye.
The artifacts found dated from approximately 1000 AD to 1300 AD and consisted of a variety of materials such as pottery, trade glass beads, Chinese
celadonCeladon is a term for ceramics denoting both a type of glaze and a ware of a specific color, also called celadon. This type of ware was invented in ancient China, particularly in Zhejiang Province.-Etymology:...
ware, gold ornaments (including the famous golden rhino), ceramic figurines, organic remains, crafted ivory and bone and refined copper and iron.
The Mapungubwe Landscape was declared a World Heritage Site on 3 July 2003.
Mapungubwe National Park
The area is now part of
Mapungubwe National ParkMapungubwe National Park is a national park in Limpopo Province, South Africa, located near the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers. It abuts on the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe, and forms part of the proposed Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area. It was established in 1995...
, which with the
Tuli BlockThe Tuli Block is a long, thin fringe of land demarcating Botswana's southeastern border. The Tuli consists mainly of privately owned game farms, offering spectacular safari tourism. The eastern section up to and including Redshield has been declared a game reserve, known as the Northern Tuli Game...
(
BotswanaThe Republic of Botswana is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
) and the Tuli Safari area (
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
), forms part of the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area, now officially known as Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation/Peace Park. .
See also
- Mapungubwe Museum
The Mapungubwe Museumat the University of Pretoria houses the national treasures of Mapungubwe, South Africa, a 13th century Iron Age site in the Limpopo Valley and a World Heritage Site...
- Mapungubwe National Park
Mapungubwe National Park is a national park in Limpopo Province, South Africa, located near the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers. It abuts on the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe, and forms part of the proposed Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area. It was established in 1995...
- Order of Mapungubwe
The Order of Mapungubwe is South Africa's highest honour. It was instituted on 6 December 2002, and is granted by the president of South Africa, for achievements in the international area which have served South Africa's interests...
- Thuli Parks and Wildlife Land
Thuli Parks and Wildlife Land is a protected area in south-western Zimbabwe. It comprises four areas within the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Estate and covers the entire west bank of the Shashe River within the Thuli Circle....
- History of South Africa
The history of South Africa is marked by immigration and ethnic conflict. The Khoisan peoples are the aboriginal people of the region who have lived there for millennia. Black South Africans are believed to originate from the Great Lakes region of Africa in prehistoric times...
- Kingdom of Zimbabwe
The Kingdom of Zimbabwe was a medieval kingdom of the Shona people. It is famous for its capital, Great Zimbabwe, the largest stone structure in southern Africa until recent times.- Etymology :...
- Great Zimbabwe
The Great Zimbabwe, or "stone buildings", is the name given to the stone ruins spread out over a 722 hectare area within the modern-day country of Zimbabwe, which itself is named after the ruins. It is near the town of Masvingo, which before majority rule was called Fort Victoria...
External links