Post by Bozur on Feb 27, 2005 4:21:54 GMT -5
Medieval Africa: Great Zimbabwe and the Arabic Connection
By Kate Prendergast
February 17, 2005
Great Zimbabwe, the monument which gave modern Zimbabwe its name
One of the tragedies of the modern colonization of Africa has been the reinvention of African history in a European image. Prior to Portuguese incursions, from around the 1500s, Europeans knew very little about the geography and culture of Africa. It was a “dark continent,” and most European knowledge had been received through the limited filters of the Bible, classical histories, and other fragmented sources. As Western interests and colonies became established across Africa, it was presented as a place ripe for discovery by the civilizing forces of modern empires. But in so doing, African history was largely written within a Eurocentric framework. As a result, many aspects of that history were distorted or ignored.
The Western “discovery” of Africa from the 16th century onwards, was underpinned by two basic assumptions—both deeply racist. The first held that black people were incapable of understanding or writing a history of their own; therefore, white people had to discover and write it for them. But the second assumption was even more insidious—black people were deemed incapable of having a history. Thus, throughout the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the history of Egypt, of the Bible, and of other sources with direct bearing on the history of both the Middle East and Africa, were reinterpreted and reinvented to present a view of ancient civilizations of which the West was the sole inheritor.1
One astonishing example of this re-writing of history is the treatment of Great Zimbabwe, the greatest stone monument in sub-Saharan Africa. Great Zimbabwe, situated in the southeast of Zimbabwe, is a massive site, which appears to have housed over 16,000 people in its heyday.2 It is the largest of more than 100 sites constructed in broadly similar ways across southern Africa, which collectively have come to be termed “zimbabwe,” from the Shona term madzimbabwe, meaning “venerated houses.” The monument consists of a large series of enclosures, constructed and surrounded by elaborate drystone walls.
Archaeological work throughout the 20th century has established the stratigraphic sequences, revealed large amounts of luxury items—including imports from as far afield as India and China—, and firmly dated the later levels to the medieval period, 1200-1500 BCE. It is now accepted that Great Zimbabwe was the center of a powerful medieval southern African state, with strong roots in indigenous African traditions. However, despite a hundred years of work at the site, this view has only been accepted relatively recently.
Until modern archaeologists were able to excavate the great sites of earlier epochs, understandings of the history of such places were largely confined to interpretations of written and oral sources. Several sources extant during the time the Portuguese arrived on southern African coastlines indicate traditions placing Great Zimbabwe—and the territory it ruled—in an explicitly Arabian context of trade and influence. Some sources even declared the monument to be the Biblical Ophir—the land of the Queen of Sheba.3
Given the general paucity of written records of the first European encounters in eastern Africa, the range of extant sources needs to be evaluated carefully. Nonetheless, the Europeans themselves encountered a region under strong Arabic influence. Such influences appear to be confirmed by the archaeology at Great Zimbabwe: the number of exotic imported items at the site, and the clear evidence for its role in trading routes with coastal networks, would indicate that Great Zimbabwe represented an African city whose pre-eminence was bound up in medieval trade routes centered on the Indian Ocean.
When the British colonized Rhodesia in the late 19th century, however, the subtleties of this evidence were dismissed and reworked to create a racist myth. Many argued that Great Zimbabwe was built by Arabs, probably Phoenicians; and, reiterating earlier claims, may have been the palace of the Queen of Sheba herself. This was the case, so the thinking went, for two main reasons. The first was because black Africans couldn’t build anything so sophisticated. The second was because, as a small, sea-based imperial nation, the British had much in common with the Phoenicians; and as a Christian nation, they also laid claim to be the heirs of Biblical civilization. Hence, anything done by “civilizing” influences in Africa must have, if only indirectly, been done in association with superior British culture itself.4
The early archaeological adventures at Great Zimbabwe are shocking testaments to this approach. The first archaeologist at the site in 1871, Carl Mauch, declared Great Zimbabwe to be of Arabic origin, because he found some wood used in the construction of the site that was very like the wood of his pencil. Therefore, he concluded, the wood must be cedar from Lebanon and must have been brought by Phoenicians. It didn’t take long for Phoenicians, and hence the builders of Great Zimbabwe, to become “white men.” Once Rhodes had colonized Mashonaland in 1890, he hired J. Theodore Bent to investigate the monument, followed by the appointment of Richard Hall as curator. Hall, desperate to excavate the site to prove its Arabic origins, proceeded to destroy much of the deposits because it represented the “filth and decadence of the Kaffir occupation.”5
By Kate Prendergast
February 17, 2005
Great Zimbabwe, the monument which gave modern Zimbabwe its name
One of the tragedies of the modern colonization of Africa has been the reinvention of African history in a European image. Prior to Portuguese incursions, from around the 1500s, Europeans knew very little about the geography and culture of Africa. It was a “dark continent,” and most European knowledge had been received through the limited filters of the Bible, classical histories, and other fragmented sources. As Western interests and colonies became established across Africa, it was presented as a place ripe for discovery by the civilizing forces of modern empires. But in so doing, African history was largely written within a Eurocentric framework. As a result, many aspects of that history were distorted or ignored.
The Western “discovery” of Africa from the 16th century onwards, was underpinned by two basic assumptions—both deeply racist. The first held that black people were incapable of understanding or writing a history of their own; therefore, white people had to discover and write it for them. But the second assumption was even more insidious—black people were deemed incapable of having a history. Thus, throughout the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the history of Egypt, of the Bible, and of other sources with direct bearing on the history of both the Middle East and Africa, were reinterpreted and reinvented to present a view of ancient civilizations of which the West was the sole inheritor.1
One astonishing example of this re-writing of history is the treatment of Great Zimbabwe, the greatest stone monument in sub-Saharan Africa. Great Zimbabwe, situated in the southeast of Zimbabwe, is a massive site, which appears to have housed over 16,000 people in its heyday.2 It is the largest of more than 100 sites constructed in broadly similar ways across southern Africa, which collectively have come to be termed “zimbabwe,” from the Shona term madzimbabwe, meaning “venerated houses.” The monument consists of a large series of enclosures, constructed and surrounded by elaborate drystone walls.
Archaeological work throughout the 20th century has established the stratigraphic sequences, revealed large amounts of luxury items—including imports from as far afield as India and China—, and firmly dated the later levels to the medieval period, 1200-1500 BCE. It is now accepted that Great Zimbabwe was the center of a powerful medieval southern African state, with strong roots in indigenous African traditions. However, despite a hundred years of work at the site, this view has only been accepted relatively recently.
Until modern archaeologists were able to excavate the great sites of earlier epochs, understandings of the history of such places were largely confined to interpretations of written and oral sources. Several sources extant during the time the Portuguese arrived on southern African coastlines indicate traditions placing Great Zimbabwe—and the territory it ruled—in an explicitly Arabian context of trade and influence. Some sources even declared the monument to be the Biblical Ophir—the land of the Queen of Sheba.3
Given the general paucity of written records of the first European encounters in eastern Africa, the range of extant sources needs to be evaluated carefully. Nonetheless, the Europeans themselves encountered a region under strong Arabic influence. Such influences appear to be confirmed by the archaeology at Great Zimbabwe: the number of exotic imported items at the site, and the clear evidence for its role in trading routes with coastal networks, would indicate that Great Zimbabwe represented an African city whose pre-eminence was bound up in medieval trade routes centered on the Indian Ocean.
When the British colonized Rhodesia in the late 19th century, however, the subtleties of this evidence were dismissed and reworked to create a racist myth. Many argued that Great Zimbabwe was built by Arabs, probably Phoenicians; and, reiterating earlier claims, may have been the palace of the Queen of Sheba herself. This was the case, so the thinking went, for two main reasons. The first was because black Africans couldn’t build anything so sophisticated. The second was because, as a small, sea-based imperial nation, the British had much in common with the Phoenicians; and as a Christian nation, they also laid claim to be the heirs of Biblical civilization. Hence, anything done by “civilizing” influences in Africa must have, if only indirectly, been done in association with superior British culture itself.4
The early archaeological adventures at Great Zimbabwe are shocking testaments to this approach. The first archaeologist at the site in 1871, Carl Mauch, declared Great Zimbabwe to be of Arabic origin, because he found some wood used in the construction of the site that was very like the wood of his pencil. Therefore, he concluded, the wood must be cedar from Lebanon and must have been brought by Phoenicians. It didn’t take long for Phoenicians, and hence the builders of Great Zimbabwe, to become “white men.” Once Rhodes had colonized Mashonaland in 1890, he hired J. Theodore Bent to investigate the monument, followed by the appointment of Richard Hall as curator. Hall, desperate to excavate the site to prove its Arabic origins, proceeded to destroy much of the deposits because it represented the “filth and decadence of the Kaffir occupation.”5