Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo, was the capital of a powerful kingdom that flourished between roughly the eleventh and fifteenth centuries and traded gold and ivory as far as the Indian Ocean coast.

Its builders, ancestors of the Shona people, raised massive walls of dry stone without mortar. The Great Enclosure, with its conical tower, is the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa.

Carved soapstone birds found at the site became a national emblem, and the country took its name from the city at independence in 1980. UNESCO inscribed Great Zimbabwe as a World Heritage site in 1986.