CULTURE CAPTURE
THE ZIMBABWE RUINS CONSPIRACY
“The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across almost 1,800 acres of present-
day southeastern Zimbabwe. Begun during the eleventh century A.D. by Bantu-speaking
ancestors of the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for more than 300
years in a local style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves… Great Zimbabwe is set
apart by the terrific scale of its structure. Its most formidable edifice, commonly referred to as
the Great Enclosure, has walls as high as 36 feet extending approximately 820 feet, making it
the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert.”1
This statement by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York encapsulates the orthodoxy
that has been enforced on the ruins. Any deviation from this orthodoxy is viewed as racist in
intent, therefore becoming a contemporary form of heresy.
The site of the Zimbabwe Ruins, now known as Great Zimbabwe, is a salutary example of an
archaeological site on which a ‘progressive’ ideology has been imposed. This farcical situation is
the consequence of archaeology being subsumed into a political ideology. Current
archaeological theories are directly contradicted by both Arab, Swahili and Portuguese historical
documents. These are far more credible than the corrupt politically motivated archaeology of
the modern era.
The Portuguese historian, Joao de Barros, stated in 1552, based on evidence from 1487 or
before, that the local population around Great Zimbabwe believed that the edifice was so
ancient that it was the work of the devil. This was despite the fact that, according to
contemporary archaeology, it was then a relatively recent construction. The Metropolitan
Museum’s text is titled ‘Great Zimbabwe (11th-15th Century)’ indicating that it was still under
construction or of relatively recent construction in the fifteenth century. There is then a glaring
discrepancy between this dating and Swahili and Portuguese historical sources.
“When and by whom, these edifices were raised, as the people of the land are ignorant of the
art of writing, there is no record, but they say that they are the work of the devil, for in
comparison with their power and knowledge it does not seem possible to them that they
should be the work of man.”2
The document indicates that by 1487 the origins of the edifice were lost in the mists of the
ancient past and were not being transmitted through local oral legends. All this directly
contradicts the prevalent archaeological orthodoxy which holds that the ruins were medieval, or
even later, and therefore should have been within the ancestral memory of the local population.
“This statement was based on information obtained by the Portuguese about 1487, and relates
back to some altogether indefinite time prior to 1487. Thus, we find that the natives at that
early period possessed no shred of tradition as to what people had erected the building, or
concerning the original occupiers who had occupied the Temple for centuries prior to its
abandonment by them, or as to the arrival of the subsequent squatters and this many-centuried
occupation.”3
These early external witness sightings directly contradict the prevailing archaeological
orthodoxy which seeks to normalize the ruins as the relatively unremarkable creation of a
medieval hermit kingdom. The concept that the ruins were not built by the local inhabitants was
first expressed by the Portuguese who were the first Europeans to penetrate into this region of
Africa in the sixteenth century. They were transmitting reports and legends that were told by
the Swahili and Arab traders and merchants who had already been present in the region for
hundreds of years.
Despite the clear documentation of Portuguese historians who stated that these structures
were the remnants of an ancient gold trading people who had long since abandoned the ruins,
contemporary historians focus their denunciations on white pioneers of the late nineteenth
century. Any imputation that the ruins were not of local origin is dismissed as a racist construct.
This indicates a sleight of hand by contemporary historians since, while they claim to be
countering racism, they dismiss with some contempt the opinions of the Arab and Swahili
informants that are contained in the sixteenth century Portuguese documents.
The Metropolitan Museum refers to nineteenth century European travellers to the region.
‘Travellers’ presumably refers to the explorer Karl Mauch, there being no tourism then to such
an unknown region. It is indicative of the metropolitan disdain for gold prospectors and
explorers who were blamed for spreading the idea that this was the location of the biblical
mines of Solomon. The early explorers were correct in their understanding that the edifice was
related to an ancient gold trade, a reality that the Metropolitan seeks to obscure or ignore.
“In the 1800s, European travellers and English colonizers, stunned by Great Zimbabwe’s
grandeur and its cunning workmanship, attributed the architecture to foreign powers. Such
attributions were dismissed when archaeological investigations conducted during the first
decades of the twentieth century confirmed both the antiquity of the site and its African
origins.”4
The supposed medieval date for the edifice originates from a brief visit to the ruins, in the first
decade of the twentieth century, by an archaeologist associated with the British Museum. He
imposed an interpretation on them that has become a form of religion. Disputing this orthodoxy
in any way is a heresy and results in an accusation of racism.
“Professor MacIver’s dating of the Temple was first given as ‘not earlier than 1400 or 1500 AD,
and possibly even later,’ and this was subsequently modified by him to ‘two centuries before
this (the sixteenth century),’ which would be the fourteenth century.” 5
As one of the first archaeologists to file a report on the ruins almost all archaeologists defer to
his conclusions no matter how absurd they increasingly appear. Much of the dating hypothesis
rests on a fragment of Nanking china found within the Great Enclosure. The area where the
china was found had been disturbed by prospectors, in the unregulated wildness of the
conditions prevailing at that time, rendering any dating conclusions invalid.
“It is a notorious fact that before 1894 any one who felt inclined to go to (Great) Zimbabwe, and
with a crowbar, pick and shovel, prospect for gold, and that what one then found he could keep
or sell… a Birmingham-made umbrella-frame, and the wire netting and brown glass of a cognac
bottle, were discovered in the same enclosure where Professor MacIver found his piece of
china, and at a greater depth than the point where he states it was discovered… Such modern
articles found at depth afford only another proof that the soil in the interior of the Temple has
been turned over and over again by unauthorised prospectors for ancient gold and relics.” 6
This piece of Nanking china, on which much of the dating of Great Zimbabwe rests, was an
exceptionally common product handed out by the Portuguese as gifts to local chiefs. It is
therefore not surprising that these products date to the period of Portuguese, or Swahili,
trading penetration of this region. The piece of Nanking china says nothing about the date of
the construction of Great Zimbabwe and everything about medieval trading patterns.
Based largely on this defective evidence Professor MacIver announced that the edifice was of
Bantu construction with primary dating achieved through this piece of Nanking china. No
mention was made of the china being found at a higher level and in the same place as was later
excavated a cognac bottle.
“In one solitary instance, and, it must be admitted, in most unsatisfactory and unreliable
circumstances, has an isolated fragment of Nanking china at the Temple been found anywhere
than in the midden debris of subsequent squatters. But this find was ultimately stated to have
been made at thirty feet distance from any main wall, and, moreover, not even at the depth at
which the cognac, soda-water and stout bottles, Broseley pipe, and umbrella frame of
Birmingham make, were discovered in the same disturbed soil and at the same spot in 1903.” 7
The Nanking china was backed up with glass beads excavated from a grave within the walls of
the Great Enclosure. The grave was in a level of debris considerably above the lowest levels, but,
like the Nanking china, was used to date the construction of the edifice. Below the level of the
grave were floors and passages that would have been completely unknown to the occupant of
the grave.
“So we find that the beads (thirteenth or fourteenth century) came from a native grave made
on the top of the midden pile of subsequent squatters, who could have known nothing of the
existence of the passages, floors, and steps below…”8
The first radiocarbon dates from Great Zimbabwe were entirely inconsistent with the dated
glass beads and the fragment of Nanking china. They debunked the orthodoxy that the walls of
Great Zimbabwe can be dated to a two hundred year period ending in the mid-fifteenth century.
Two wooden lintels were found in 1950 in a wall in the Great Enclosure. The lintels originally
supported the wall over a drain built in its base, and so they were described as unquestionably
associated with its construction.
A piece of the first lintel was sent to W. F. Libby in Chicago, the originator of radiocarbon dating,
who dated the wood to AD 535+-160. Since these dates were incompatible with the dated
beads and china and supposed dates of the walls, Libby dated the lintel two more times with
comparable results: 606+-16 and 674+-260. The second lintel was then dated by Libby to 444+-
35 and the University of London to 710+-80.9
These early dates contradicted the emerging orthodoxy that Great Zimbabwe was the product
of a Bantu civilization, since they predated by centuries the Bantu migration into Zimbabwe
from the north. In order to correct this anomaly the archaeological community suppressed the
radiocarbon dates stating that they were essentially irrelevant. This position calls into question
why the radiocarbon tests were conducted at all if they were then to be so casually rejected. A
pattern was set where the Bantu construction orthodoxy was rendered false by new
technologies that would later include DNA analysis.
“In order to escape from the conclusive carbon-14 evidence, those among the later
archaeologists who have constituted themselves the exponents of the pro-Bantu school have
been forced to ludicrous shifts to explain the evidence away. They postulate that pieces of
timber lay about the Rhodesian veld for centuries before being taken as building material... The
carbon-14 evidence so destroys the theorists that its testimony must be explained away. We
know of no similar case in archaeology where such clear scientific evidence has been set aside
in order to suit an entirely unfounded theory.”10
All the precepts of the orthodoxy are set in stone and cannot be challenged without an
accusation of racism. It indicates that the contemporary cancellation culture can be traced back
to at least the beginning of the twentieth century, and further back if it is categorized as a form
of heretical denunciation. The prevailing orthodoxy, originally developed from MacIver’s
interpretation, imagines a Bantu hermit kingdom in the interior of Africa. The theory draws on
themes that were prominent in the English imagination such as the myth of Prester John and
the Victorian novels of Rider Haggard. Ironically these visions have been inherited by the
‘progressive’ ideology that forces the Bantu origin theory on all western institutions.
The orthodox interpretation proposes, despite the lack of any evidence, and without any trace
of irony, that the enormous wall of the Great Enclosure was built as a form of art. According to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art the huge walls of hewn granite were the monumental
expression of “a local style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves.” Since the walls have
no utilitarian role in this utopian kingdom they were gradually built for their aesthetic appeal. It
is unlikely that any such civilization has ever existed in human history except within the confines
of fiction.
Proponents of this theory imagine a pure hermetic kingdom primarily engaged in cattle rearing.
The Metropolitan Museum makes no mention of the massive gold trade that is both
documented in Arab texts and evidenced by the presence of multiple ancient gold mines.
Bizarrely the inhabitants have no knowledge of the lucrative gold trade, carried on in their midst
and documented by a multitude of sources, being focused purely on their cattle which they
valued above all else.
“But scholars doubt that they (the great walls) ever served a martial purpose and have argued
instead that cattle and people were valued above land, which was in any event too abundant to
be hoarded.”11
The inhabitants live in mud huts within the womb-like space defined by the containing walls,
with these mud huts being the very inspiration for the entire edifice. In the Bantu origin theory
the monumental walls created from hewn blocks of granite are seen as equivalent to the dry-
stone walls of the English countryside. This concept exposes the constrained vision of the
English archaeologists that originated the Bantu origin theory.
The Bantu origin theory corresponds more to English fiction of the period rather than the
realities of Africa. It was characterized at the time as a glorified ‘mud hut theory’ where the
purpose of the huge ovoid granite walls was to reflect the shape of a humble hut and function
as a form of art. Equally absurd were their theories of the conical tower that dominates the
ruins. This was classified as symbolizing a grain silo, reflecting the concept of an idealized hermit
kingdom that built huge granite walls that were an expression of art. The conical tower was an
expression of the same artistic paradigm that “eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves.”
In the sentimental tale that is attached to Great Zimbabwe there is an obvious deception.
Inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe are described as primarily involved in rearing cattle. The reality
is that Great Zimbabwe was a centre of the Indian Ocean trade in gold, ivory and slavery. The
central argument of the Bantu origin theory is that the numerous small stone ruins scattered
across Zimbabwe are an example of cattle-rearing civilization.
Their presence is held to disprove the concept that Great Zimbabwe has a foreign genesis. Many
of these lesser stone ruins are obviously fortifications on kopjes and this fact alone disproves
the Bantu origin theory. There would be no need for forts in a land so peaceful that the
inhabitants spend vast resources in creating walls purely for the sole purpose of eschewing
rectilinearity for flowing curves.
“Neither the first nor the last of some 300 similar complexes located on the Zimbabwean
plateau, Great Zimbabwe is set apart by the terrific scale of its structure… The enormous walls
are the best-preserved testaments of Great Zimbabwe’s past and the largest example of an
architectural type seen in archaeological sites throughout the region.”12
This statement is misleading in that it implies that similar structures are spread across the
region whereas these are entirely subsidiary to the massive edifice of Great Zimbabwe. By
covering up the gold trade the orthodox cattle-raising theory also covers up the slavery that
would inevitably have accompanied massive gold extraction. Abandoned gold mines, whether
ancient or medieval, are spread across the Zimbabwean plateau. Smaller stone ruins, and ruins
of forts, are also spread across the region to control and protect the gold trade.
“On all sides there was testimony of the enormous amount of work that had been done by the
ancients for the production of gold. Here, as on the Mazoe and at Umtali, tens of thousands of
slaves must have been at work taking out the softer parts of the casing of the reefs, and millions
of tons have been overturned in their search for gold. In all these places, too, as in the Mazoe
Valley, especially down by the streams, are found crushing-stones, some in long rows,
suggesting the idea that the gold had been worked by gangs of slaves…”13
From Great Zimbabwe a chain of forts follows the course of the rivers towards the coast. It is
difficult to imagine the point of these fortifications in the Bantu origin theory. Under the
orthodox theories there would be no trade of value towards the coast if the inhabitants of Great
Zimbabwe were primarily engaging in rearing cattle. The reality is that there was a lucrative
international trade in gold and ivory and these trades would inevitably have involved slavery.
“... chains of ruins of forts, occupying strategic positions at comparatively equal distances from
each other, run in a south-easterly direction along the Motelekwe River, and are further carried
along the Sabi (Save) far in Portuguese-East-Africa (Mozambique)... the Mapaku Ruins,
misnamed Little Zimbabwe, which lie eight miles south-east of the Great Zimbabwe, would form
the first posting station and fort for the protection of the road to the Motelekwe chain of
forts.”14
Under the control of the Abbasid Caliphate was the region of Basra. This was an emporium
located on the western coast of the Persian Gulf (in modern-day Iraq) that was enriched by the
trade of gold, ivory and slaves from the east African coast. Al-Mas’udi describes the city in the
tenth century. The title of his book, Meadows of Gold, establishes a metaphorical connection
between an extensive description of the gold trade from Sofala and the meadows of Basra.
“There (Sofala) is the furthest limit for the voyages from Oman and Siraf on the Sea of the Zanj.
In the same way that the sea of China ends with the lands of Sirla (Japan), the sea of Zanj ends
with the land of Sofala and the Waq-waq, which produces gold and many other wonderful
things.”15
This tenth century text is the first to specifically refer to the gold trade from Sofala. The coastal
port of Sofala (contemporary Beira in Mozambique) was situated on the coastal plain below the
Zimbabwean plateau that contained multiple rich reefs of gold. The port was also the transit
point for the ivory trade from the interior.
Much of the ivory was shipped to the Persian Gulf to connect with the Silk Road with the
ultimate destination being China and India. The gold and ivory trades indicate the sophisticated
trade networks which were connected to Great Zimbabwe and the African interior beyond. In
the same tenth century text al-Mas’udi refers to the ivory trade from Sofala to Oman and from
there to India and China.
“It is from this country (Sofala) that large elephant tusks of fifty pounds and more are obtained.
(These) go generally to Oman, and from there are sent on to China and India. This is the chief
trade route…”16
The title of al-Mas’udi’s text, Meadows of Gold, evocatively links the gold trade to the slave
trade. Slaves were transported from the east coast of Africa to provide the hard labour
necessary for the drainage of swamps around Basra. As the drained swamps were planted with
grain they became, metaphorically, meadows of gold.
Basra was the location for the famous slave revolt, the Zanj Rebellion, of 869-883 which al-
Mas’udi also references in the Meadows of Gold. The revolt involved slaves or freed slaves from
the east African coast. The historical event enables a date to be placed on this trade although it
may have been active for an indefinite period before the dated revolt. Al Mas’udi’s text
illustrates the interrelated trade in gold, ivory and slaves. It additionally connects Sofala, Basra
and the emporiums of Oman.
Basra functioned as a port and emporium to the wider Persian region including the influential
city of Shiraz. The entire region surrounding the city and adjacent to Basra was within the
sphere of influence of Shiraz. Documents that recorded the history of the Swahili Coast, written
by the Swahili people themselves to memorialize their ancestors, refer to a migration from
Persia, and specifically from Shiraz.
Kilwa rivalled Sofala for control of the gold trade from the Zimbabwean plateau and the
inhabitants documented their historical ancestry. For this they were branded racist by the
perverse standards of western cultural and academic institutions. The implication that all the
original inhabitants of the Swahili Coast were not of pure Bantu heritage was considered
heretical. In the Kilwa Chronicle a history of Arab and Persian migration to the Swahili Coast is
documented.
These documents have always been ridiculed by western academic institutions as entirely
mythical and motivated by a racist impulse to deny a purely Bantu heritage. They were seen as
an attempt by the inhabitants of the coast to separate themselves from a pure African heritage
through a bogus claim of Persian and Arab ancestry. Universal academic disparagement of the
Kilwa Chronicle is related to the race based fantasy that academic and cultural institutions have
projected onto Great Zimbabwe.
New analysis of human DNA has proved that the history documented in the Kilwa Chronicle is
substantially correct. Specifically DNA analysis of medieval human remains on the Swahili Coast
has revealed widespread patrilineal ancestry from Persia. Male migrants from Persia marrying
into local populations was a factor in the flourishing of the Swahili civilization. Arab DNA was
also present, becoming more dominant as the Swahili Coast later evolved.
A similar history of Persian and Arab migration to the Swahili Coast is contained in documents
that are termed the Book of the Zanj. These were aso disparaged by western cultural and
academic institutions but due to these DNA results are now especially relevant. They state that
in the year equivalent to 766 a revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate by the Arab chiefs of the
Swahili Coast was suppressed and they were replaced by Persian officials in every town from
Mogadishu to Kilwa. DNA has proven the veracity of a large section of the Book of the Zanj
relating to Persian and Arab migration. The original Arab chiefs were part of a prior migration to
the coast that is now partially verified.
The Book of the Zanj states that before the main Persian and Arab migration to the coast there
was an original migration organised by a Himyarite king, Tubba ‘l-Himyari. The great Himyarite
king ordered the migration during the age of paganism. The migration, by being defined as
pagan, was pre-Islamic and therefore prior to the seventh century. According to the Book of the
Zanj this migration was also spearheaded by Omanis fleeing the many wars in Oman at that
time.17
The great Himyarite king in the Book of the Zanj is identified as Tubba Abd Karib As’ad Kamil
giving a date of the late fourth and early fifth century for the original Arab migration to the
Swahili Coast. Significantly the documents state that the purpose of the migration was to find
gold and that the king both found and dug for gold. By specifically stating that the Arabs dug for
gold unquestionably means that they established gold mines rather than relying on alluvial gold.
In order to find gold the Himyarites would have had to penetrate as far south as the river deltas
leading to the Zimbabwean plateau and then penetrate inland to dig for gold. The geographic
distribution of gold reefs that were accessible from the east African coast proves that if the
Himyarites had found significant quantities of gold then they were on the Zimbabwean plateau.
The Book of the Zanj states that Arabs from Oman were part of this original Himyarite migration
to discover gold. Oman was adjacent to, or incorporated into, the Himyarite kingdom and it is
the architecture of pre-Islamic Oman that bears an exceptionally close relationship to Great
Zimbabwe. The architectural forms of the edifice therefore correlate with the culture of the
Himyarites and Omanis who migrated there to find gold during the reign of a great Himyarite
king.
Conical towers are spread across various regions of Oman. They date to the bronze age and
remain a mystery in that their precise function is unknown. Some are up to four metres high
and closely resemble the conical tower that dominates Great Zimbabwe. They are built from
hewn stones without mortar and are comparable to the hewn stones without mortar from
which the conical tower at Great Zimbabwe is built.
Some of the towers contain human remains. Other towers serve a symbolic purpose defining an
area where ancient copper and bronze metallurgy was practiced. Ancient cuneiform tablets
refer to contemporary Oman as the ancient region of Magan which was known for exporting
copper to the Indus River civilization in India and to the Mesopotamian region including the city
of Ur. Allied to this was Magan’s renown as a centre for ship building with the capacity to ship its
products over a wide region.
The symbolism of the towers is related to the furnaces that produced the copper and in which
humans were potentially resurrected through the quasi-religious practices of smelting copper.
Just as copper was released from the base ore the human soul could be potentially released
from the base material of the human body. These are some of the central concepts of alchemy
and would have been resonant in a pre-Islamic culture that was centered around the production
and export of metals.
The towers also identified and symbolized the fame that Oman had acquired through this
industry. They symbolized an Omani identity that was expressed through metallurgy. At Great
Zimbabwe the tower symbolizes in its form the archetypal conical form of a furnace, and was a
symbolic marker of an Omani presence in an area that was defined by metallurgy. In the case of
Great Zimbabwe this was primarily a location for gold smelting.
Along the top of the walls of Great Zimbabwe are much smaller rounded forms that, unlike
crenellated medieval forts, serve no defensive purpose. They are comparable, both in size and
form, to the beehive tombs of Oman that are set along ridges in the landscape. Architectural
and symbolic features have been incorporated into the edifice in order to define its origins and
purpose as a site of Arab metallurgy.
“The finds in the fortress of Zimbabwe (on the kopje above Great Zimbabwe) which touch upon,
perhaps, the most interesting topic of all are those which refer to the manufacture of gold.
Close underneath the temple in the fortress stood a gold-smelting furnace made of very hard
cement of powdered granite, with a chimney of the same material, and with neatly bevelled
edges. Hard by, in a chasm between two boulders, lay all the rejected casings from which the
gold-bearing quartz had been extracted by exposure to heat prior to the crushing, proving
beyond a doubt that these mines, though not immediately on a gold reef, formed the capital of
a gold-producing people who had chosen this hill fortress with its granite boulders for their
capital owing to its peculiar strategic advantages.”18
There is DNA data that links the specific region that contains Great Zimbabwe to Semitic
ancestry from the Levant or Middle East. The ancestral lands of the Lemba people include the
area of Great Zimbabwe. Y-DNA analysis of the male Lemba population has indicated a partially
Middle Eastern origin revealing an ancient paternal migration pattern from the Middle East.
Some researchers identify the Hadhramaut region as the potential source for the Y-DNA
sequence. The ancient Hadhramaut region encompassed modern Yemen and significantly,
Oman. There is therefore a corresponding link to the towers of ancient Oman.
In some of the Lemba population the Cohen Modal is present indicating at least Semitic
descent, either Arab or Jewish. It is the presence of the Cohen Modal in significant quantities
that is a matter of controversy since it suggests descent from a Jewish priestly class.
The great Himyarite king that is celebrated in the Book of the Zanj as the founder of the Swahili
Coast, and as the first to order an Arab migration there to search for gold, has been identified as
Abu Karib (Abu Karib As’ad al-Kamil). He was king (Tubba) of the Himyarite Kingdom from 390 to
420, first ruling as co-regent with his father from 375. The great king of the Himyarites that is
celebrated as the founder of the Swahili Coast has a specific connection to the Cohen Modal
DNA of the Lemba people. Either this king, or his father before him, was the first Arab king to
convert to Judaism.
There is a traceable interrelationship between human DNA and the geography of gold
distribution in Africa. Significant gold reefs are only located in specific regions and the DNA of
historic human remains on the Swahili Coast reveals the universal attraction that draws humans
towards the sources of gold.
The Africanist agenda seeks to hide this history through the pretense that the original
inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe were primarily involved in cattle herding. They are held to have
lived in a Bantu hermit kingdom building walls of stone in an early expression of modern art.
The absurdity of this theory reveals that its genesis lies in nineteenth century literary themes
that were inspired by the Prester John myth. The fabled white kingdom in the middle of Africa
has been replaced by a hermetically pure, and racially pure, black Bantu kingdom.
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveal the scale of the deception and its adherence to a
propagandist myth that was being created by the dictatorial Mugabe regime.
“(The Ambassador) noted that Zimbabweans don’t even know the true origins of the ruins at
the Great Zimbabwe, which were here when the Shona entered from East Africa and settled on
land that was essentially vacant. An interesting twist on ZANU-PF’s view of truth; there have
been some articles claiming that the ruins were built by Mugabe’s ancestors - with total
disregard to the fact that most people here know it to be a blatant falsehood.”19
This reveals the Africanist agenda whereby any African civilization must be defined as purely
African in origin. The concept appears to have originated in the rejection of any white presence
on the continent but has been extended to include the Swahili Coast. Consequently Arab
historical documents on Africa are summarily ignored. Also dismissed are the Swahili
documents, such as the Kilwa Chronicle and the Book of the Zanj, despite these being Swahili
documents that record their own ancestral history. Furthermore, the Lemba ancestral myths are
discounted because they conflict with the concept that Great Zimbabwe’s builders can be
directly traced back to Robert Mugabe’s ancestors.
The central falsehood that has been perpetrated is the denial of the extensive gold trade that
obviously was the original motivation for building a great walled edifice, situated below a hill
fortress, that protected the route to the coast. Failing to find any role for these great walls in
their pursuit of an Africanist agenda, western cultural and academic institutions have declared
that they must be considered works of art. Attention is therefore focused on the serpentine
curves of the walls as an expression of an African art which rejects the concept of rectilinearity.
It is behind these serpentine walls that the western mind is imprisoned.
Al-Mas’udi’s tenth century text, Meadows of Gold, is the first extensive contemporaneous
written testament to the gold trade from Sofala and by extension from Great Zimbabwe. In
addition to the section on Sofala, with its emphasis on the gold and ivory trade, he also refers
extensively to the slave rebellion in Basra. It is perhaps this factor that has led contemporary
historians and archaeologists to construct an entirely fictional theory for Great Zimbabwe that
deflects from any Arab involvement in its existence.
Hence Africanist archaeologists and historians have conjured up an idealized myth of a people
so peaceful that they build giant walls of hewn granite as works of art while they themselves
reside in mud huts and herd cattle. More than this they somehow remain unaware of the gold
reefs that surround them. Without the presence of gold the spectre of slavery recedes.
The archaeologists and historians that originated the Bantu origin theory would have been well
aware of al-Mas’udi. They conjured up a theory in which a hermit Bantu kingdom evolved in a
protective wall-building bubble oblivious to the gold and slave trade. These myths were
however constructed in the early twentieth century before the invention of carbon dating and
DNA analysis that are comprehensively demolishing the Africanist myths.
This is a form of cultural capture that replicates in a cultural sense the so-called ‘state capture’
of corruption that has been a recognizable feature of South Africa’s governance. The difference
between the two is that cultural capture is not confined to South Africa but has captured every
single academic and cultural institution of Europe and America.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art extols the cultural qualities of the walls of the Zimbabwe
Ruins while simultaneously ignoring all the historical Portuguese and Arab documents, the
documented ancestral myths of the Swahili and the Lemba, the first carbon dating results that
are now suppressed by the archaeological community, and more recently the Y-DNA data that is
increasingly unravelling the orthodoxy. All of these lie guarded and suppressed behind the
towering walls with their “serpentine courses” and “remarkably finished surfaces.”
“All of Great Zimbabwe’s walls were fitted without the use of mortar by laying stones one on top
of the other, each layer slightly more recessed than the last to produce a stabilizing inward
slope. Early examples were coarsely fitted using rough blocks and incorporated features of the
landscape such as boulders into the walls. The technique was refined over the years, and later
walls were fitted together closely and evenly over long, serpentine courses to produce
remarkably finished surfaces.”20
1. Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York - Great Zimbabwe (11th -15th Century)
2. Joao de Barros - Decades of Asia - 1552
3. Richard Nicklin Hall - Prehistoric Rhodesia - 1909
4. Metropolitan Museum of Art
5. Richard Nicklin Hall - Prehistoric Rhodesia
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. South African Archaeological Bulletin 46:61-70 - 1991
10. Gayre - The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilization
11. Metropolitan Museum of Art
12. Ibid.
13. J. Theodore Bent - The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland - 1895
14. Richard Nicklin Hall - Great Zimbabwe
15. al-Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold
16. Ibid.
17. Book of the Zanj [Book of the Zengi - Manuscript K]
18. J. Theodore Bent - The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland
19. Wikileaks - Harare - Zimbabwe - 14 January 2010
20. Metropolitan Museum of Art
