Читать книгу Granite - Jenny Robson - Страница 5

It is one of the world’s enduring mysteries: who built the granite walls of Great Zimbabwe? Walls that still stand tall today, without cement or mortar to hold them together.

Was it the Ancient Phoenicians, come this far south in their fine sailing ships? Was it the stonemasons of the Queen of Sheba, fabled friend to King Solomon of Israel?

Were the walls perhaps constructed as a market citadel by adventurous Arab traders? Were they built by Venda and Lemba clans, stopped awhile on their slow migration south? Or perhaps by the early BaKaranga, ancestors of the people who inhabit this area today?

No one can say with utter certainty.

But one thing is sure: for several hundred years a great city state existed there. Its citizens prospered within a peaceful, well-ordered society. They traded in gold, in forged iron, in ivory and salt. They imported luxury items from far-off lands: cotton goods and glass beads from Arabia and India, fine Chinese porcelain and silks. And they had the skill and the motivation to build those astounding walls.

Then the city state collapsed.

Sometime in the mid-fifteenth century, around 1445 AD, the citadel was abandoned. The towering granite walls were left to the mercy of wind and rain and creeping bush. Why? What could have happened to bring this civilisation to its sudden end?

That too is one of the world’s enduring mysteries.