First off, Great Zimbabwe is a fairly old (about 700 years IIRC) archeological site that doesn't have alot to do with the Zulu.

It has long been assumed it was part of a complex that involved a gold mining operation run by slaves. This was the area where both gold and slaves bound for the East African coastal trading zone with the Arab world originated.

Now they think it might have been a kind of Stonehenge like observatory...
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/package.jsp?name=stonehenge/stonehenge

Indeed, Zimbabwe definitely wasn't a Zulu city, despite Civ. :)

IIRC, it's assumed now to be a native Bantu civilisation, which also has some trading relations with the Arabs at Zanzibar. But not sure about the slaves portion.... :hmm:

Well East Africa was the source for slaves for the Arabic world, and most of those were rounded up from interior tribes and shipped out through places like Zanzibar, Kilwa, Mombassa, etc. You are probably right that they weren't coming from as deep as Great Zimbabwe area. The gold and iron was though.

The present State of Zimbabwe was named after Great Zimbabwe. It means Stone Houses in the local Shona Language.
George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History, Brown University claims the the city of Great Zimbabwe was built between the 13th and 14th century by a Shona speaking people, a language still spoken by some Zimbabwians. Another source cites, by means of carbonradioactive dating, the foundation back to 600 AD.
Of course the new information by Richard Wade suggests construction might have commenced earlier if the observatory was built before 1300.
I don't know. Anyone care to ask his excellency President Mugabes cultural advisor on the issue of foundation?

Since the Boers (naughty people) supressed any studies on the issue in colonial times the study of this culture is a relatively new phenomonen. (I'm begining to like the culture flip rule)

Of course, most astronomers largely discount the expansive claims of Stonehenge as an astronomical observing site; as they argue, it is one thing to build a complex along lines determined by the movement of the heavens, it is quite another to use a site for observational and predictive functions.

And the evidence that Richard Wade has assembled as proof of Zimbabwe observatory functions is pretty damned slim; I think I'll stick with an interpretation that emphasizes the defensive nature of the site.

Originally posted by Andu Indorin

And the evidence that Richard Wade has assembled as proof of Zimbabwe observatory functions is pretty damned slim; I think I'll stick with an interpretation that emphasizes the defensive nature of the site.

His theory is that a celestial event caused people to flock to the observatory. To my mind an observatory is a place for royalty to hold court with their scientists. Architectural form is significant and should co-operate usage iwith functional mannerism, hence the height of the building which is usually characteristic for an observatory. If astronomers from Great Zimbabwe were capable of communicating with the upland (lingvistic familiarty has been established) they might have told them that their city would protect the future immigrants from divine retribution. in effect it made history of antique urbanisation by making a connection between the celestial and the humane activities.