The complex of ruins known as Great Zimbabwe lies 30 kilometres southeast of Masvingo. It is the symbol modern Zimbabwe took it's name from - the word 'Zimbabwe' is derived from the Shona word maDzimbabwe, or dzimbahwe, meaning 'a great stone building'. Great Zimbabwe is beautifully situated in a fertile and well-watered valley at the head of the Mutirikwi River. Archaeological investigations indicate that this valley, as well as the hill dominating it where the bulk of the ruin stands, were inhabited by several different races from an early age.

Early man sheltered in the caves here, and by the 4^th century AD the first Iron Age people, apparently the Gokomere group, found their way to the area and discovered the desirability of the Mutirikwi Valley. It was a place suitable for a king, an oasis of fertility in the wilderness of Africa, with pleasant breezes blowing up the valley to produce a mild and healthy climate.

The hill seems to have attracted the first Iron Age settlers. It was a natural stronghold, easy to defend and dominating the valley.

Over the years so many people settled on the hill that it became overcrowded. Additional building sites were obtained by creating platforms made of piled-up granite rocks forming walls whose insides were filled up with rubble; the conventional African mud-walled huts were then erected on the level surface.

Others settled in the valley at the foot of the hill. It appears that the king, the warriors and the priests of Mwari remained on the hill, while the queen, with the bulk of the people, lived down in the valley. The residence of the king was surrounded by a particularly large, well-built and impressive stone wall.

Considerable archaeological research has not revealed signs of the presence of any people foreign to Africa in these ruins other than a few traders or visitors. The evidence indicates that these vast ruins were built by substantially the same people as those living in Zimbabwe today.

Essentially, the ruins consist of walls made of fragments of granite piled on top of the other. There are two main areas of stone wall enclosures: in the valley at the foot of the hill, and on the top of the hill.

In the valley at the foot of the hill, more than 900 000 granite fragments were used in the construction of the Imba huru (Great Enclosure). The walls of this impressive structure are decorated with chevron patterns of black and white granite fragments.

The ruins on the hill, the Nharira ya Mambo (Place of the King), originally surrounded the huts of the king, the warriors and the priests.

The builders of the ruins never erected any roofing. Their stonework walls always either enclosed living space, or supported platforms.

The great material wealth of Great Zimbabwe may have been its downfall. After its discovery in the 1870s European adventurers arrived in droves. The rumor started that Zimbabwe was the legendary "Land of Ophir", the source of King Solomon's gold. The Europeans could not believe that the African "savages" could build in stone. And so, unfortunately, not much is left of anything since the diggers, looters, and murderers have come and gone.

Yet, there are no ruins like these anywhere else in the world. The smallstone construction gives them immense power in the vast setting of Africa. Large building blocks, curiously, would be dwarfed by the settings, but the cumulative effect of thousands of small, pilled fragments is of concentrated human effort.