Inside and outside the dry stone walls: revisiting the material culture of Great Zimbabwe

• Autores: Shadreck Chirikure, Innocent Pikirayi
• Localización: Antiquity, ISSN 0003-598X, Vol. 82, Nº 318, 2008, págs. 976-993
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Any study of Great Zimbabwe has to rely a great deal on re-examining and re-assessing the work of early investigators, the men who removed all the most important finds from the ruins and stripped them of so much of their deposits' (Garlake 1973: 14). The authors have here done us a great service in reviewing the surviving archaeological evidence from this world famous site. They challenge the structuralist interpretation - in which different parts of the site were allocated to kings, priests, wives or to circumcision rituals - and use the architectural, stratigraphic and artefactual evidence accumulated over the years to present a new sequence. The early enclosures on the hill, the Great Enclosure and the valley enclosures now appear as the work of successive rulers, each founding a new residence and power centre in accord with Shona practice