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Mapungubwe, 1937 – 2017 Producing the Precolonial: Professional and Popular Lives of Mapungubwe, 1937 – 2017 by Himal Ramji RMJHIM003 SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN In fulfilment of the requirements for the degreeTown MASTER OF ARTS Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF CAPECape TOWN Date of submission: 19 February 2018 of Supervisor: Professor Carolyn Hamilton (NRF Chair, Archives and Public Culture Initiative, UCT), Dr Kate Angier (School of Education, UCT), Dr Bodhisattva Kar (Department of Historical Studies, UCT) DECLARATION I, Himal Ramji, hereby declare that the work on which this dissertation/thesis is based is my original work (except where acknowledgements indicate otherwise) and that neither the whole work nor any part of it has been, is being, or is to be submittedUniversity for another degree in this or any other university. I empower the university to reproduce for the purpose of research either the whole or any portion of the contents in any manner whatsoever. Signature: ………………………………. Date: 26/02/2018 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my greatest gratitude to my mom, dad, Bhavs, Loopy and Bobby. Special thanks to my supervisors, Professor Carolyn Hamilton, Dr Bodhisattva Kar, and Dr Kate Angier for their guidance, patience, and wisdom. Thanks must also go to the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative and the Department of Historical Studies (UCT), as well as the National Research Foundation, without whom this project would never have come to be. I dedicate this work to Ricky and Dom, who taught us that loss was only ever the beginning. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the changing meanings of the thing that is ‘Mapungubwe’ (most often considered as a thirteenth-century southern African state) within and outside the academy from 1937 and 2017, deliberately excluding meanings that might have existed prior to 1937, analysing the socio-political work Mapungubwe has been made to do in this period. The study explores the shaping and positioning of evidence in the production of narratives that ascribe and/or enforce particular truths or regimes of truth. To do this, I consider the politico-cultural associations that convert an object into evidence of something and make that evidence meaningful. Under what conditions, and for what reasons does this conversion occur? And, what specific meaning is imposed into the object? This is, therefore, an analytical disaggregation and political assessment of the particular signs and symbols through which the composite and contested imaginaire of Mapungubwe has been historically constructed. Necessarily, it is also an unpicking of the languages of evidence. The work is divided into three parts, each dealing with a different strut in the making of Mapungubwe. The first chapter covers the archaeological production of Mapungubwe, from the first excavational work conducted in the 1930s, until more recent work, during the 2010s. During the early twentieth century, the topic of Mapungubwe was cloistered within academic archaeology, particularly at the University of Pretoria. It was only after the end of apartheid that the ‘trope’ of Mapungubwe began to be deployed in an increasingly wider social realm and integrated into multiple educational and heritage projects, with particular encouragement from the state. The second chapter looks at the introduction and development of the theme of Mapungubwe in the South African national history education curriculum after 2003, when it was also made a UNESCO World Heritage Site and harnessed as name of the Order of Mapungubwe. The chapter analyses the narrative presentation of Mapungubwe in the existing curriculum, and the attending conceptual devices through which this narrative is constructed and sustained. The third chapter scans the explosion of Mapungubwe in popular discourses, about a decade after its strategic foregrounding in school education and institutionalisation as heritage. In this chapter I examine several literary narratives, artistic productions and promotional activities of tourism in conjunction with the current political and economic developments in the area. I make use of sources from various different academic disciplines, including archaeology, history, politics, education and history education, literary theory, as well as relevant samples from fictive writing, sculpture, poetry, touristic longform writing, and advertisements. In bringing together such diverse orders of discourse, the thesis attempts to map the expanding topographies of Mapungubwe – a venture that, I submit, has methodological and topical significance beyond the immediate field of inquiry. Through this work, the reader will be able to see how the language used to describe and inscribe meaning in Mapungubwe has changed over time, exposing the malleability of (precolonial) history in the hands of both professionals and non-professionals. The thesis makes clear to the reader the importance of ‘popular’ representations of history in the development of modern culture, both in terms of reproducing existing conditions, as well as resisting them. Finally, the thesis troubles the concept of the ‘precolonial’, and considers what changing purpose the period has had over time, how it shapes our view of history, and how we could alternatively envisage the precolonial and, thus, history. 3 Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 2 PREFACE .................................................................................................................................. 8 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 10 Mapungubwe............................................................................................................................ 10 Research questions ................................................................................................................... 11 Significance and contribution .................................................................................................. 12 Theoretical and conceptual approach....................................................................................... 13 Configuring loss ................................................................................................................... 13 Locating the lost in language ............................................................................................... 14 Professional knowledge ....................................................................................................... 15 Sanctified Science ................................................................................................................ 16 Popular Lives ....................................................................................................................... 18 Methodological approach......................................................................................................... 19 Chapter Outline: From professional, to national, to popular ................................................... 21 A world beyond science ........................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................ 25 Professionalising Mapungubwe ............................................................................................... 25 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 26 Greefswald ........................................................................................................................... 27 “Simbabwe goud!” ............................................................................................................... 28 The first excavations and the first publication (1934 – 1937) ............................................. 31 Gold found at Mapungubwe ................................................................................................ 31 John Schofield’s ceramic sequencing .................................................................................. 32 Lestrade’s ethnology ............................................................................................................ 33 Alexander Galloway’s skeletons .......................................................................................... 34 Processes in archaeological meaning-making ..................................................................... 37 The amateur archaeologist and the physical anthropologist, 1940 to 1964 ............................. 39 Gardner’s Mapungubwe Vol.II (1935 – 1963) ..................................................................... 40 Bambadyanalo/K2: Hottentots in Hamitic histories ............................................................ 40 4 The fact of Bantu invasions: Producing precolonial relations ............................................. 42 Inputs from
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