The Great Zimbabwe Mystery: Africa's Lost Medieval Metropolis

In southeastern Africa stands one of the continent's most impressive archaeological sites - Great Zimbabwe, a massive stone city built without mortar that housed up to 18,000 people at its peak. The walls tower 36 feet high, constructed from over a million granite blocks fitted together so precisely they've stood for 800 years. But when European explorers discovered it in the 1800s, they couldn't accept that Africans had built something so magnificent.

Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a powerful medieval trading empire that controlled gold and ivory routes between Africa's interior and the Indian Ocean coast. The kingdom minted its own currency, traded with China and Persia, and displayed wealth that rivaled European kingdoms. Yet colonizers invented wild theories - it must have been built by Phoenicians, Arabs, or even the Queen of Sheba. Anything but the ancestors of the local Shona people.

Racist archaeologists literally destroyed evidence and suppressed findings that proved African origin. The Rhodesian government banned books that stated Africans built Great Zimbabwe. It wasn't until the 1970s that the truth became officially accepted - this was an entirely African achievement, built by the ancestors of modern Zimbabweans between 1100-1450 CE.

This episode explores the real history of Great Zimbabwe, why it was abandoned, and how racism shaped archaeology and continues to affect how we view African civilizations.

Keywords: weird history, Great Zimbabwe, African history, medieval Africa, archaeological mysteries, Zimbabwe ruins, African civilizations, Shona people, colonial archaeology, historical racism

Perfect for listeners who love: African history, archaeological mysteries, medieval civilizations, stories of historical injustice, and underrepresented world history.