ICCROM COnseRvatIOn studIes 4 the Preservation of Great Zimbabwe Your MonuMent our Shrine ICCROM COnseRvatIOn studIes 4 the Preservation of Great Zimbabwe Your MonuMent our Shrine by Webber Ndoro ISBN 92-9077-199-2 © 2005 ICCROM International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property Via di San Michele 13 00153 Rome, Italy www.iccrom.org Design by Maxtudio, Rome Contents Foreword v Acknowledgements 1 List of illustrations 2 The management of ruined monuments 4 1 the framework 4 Preservation 5 Presentation 6 Heritage management in Southern Africa and 2 developments in Zimbabwe 8 developments in southern africa 8 Protective legislation 10 Origins of modern heritage management in Zimbabwe 11 discussion 15 Great Zimbabwe: nature of the monument 16 3 archaeological background 17 architectural details 18 dry stone structures 22 Dhaka (earthen) structures 25 Material culture 26 discussion 26 The development of heritage management at Great Zimbabwe 27 4 the first europeans 27 ISBN 92-9077-199-2 Men of science and politics 28 © 2005 ICCROM Men of the people 32 International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property Via di San Michele 13 International input into Great Zimbabwe’s management 35 00153 discussion 37 Rome, Italy Preserving the fabric off the monument 38 www.iccrom.org 5 dry stone structures 38 Dhaka structures 39 Design by Maxtudio, Rome external Factors 40 Recording and documentation 42 Preserving sections of Great Zimbabwe: case studies 43 Preservation process 47 discussion 48 Redefining the cultural landscape 49 6 Place information 51 the cultural landscape before the nineteenth century 52 the cultural landscape from the nineteenth century onwards 55 vegetation 57 Present setting 59 discussion 60 Great Zimbabwe: a valuable cultural resource 62 7 Cultural values 63 Global and national values 65 analysis of values for Great Zimbabwe 65 Cultural values for Great Zimbabwe 71 discussion 71 Presenting the cultural heritage 73 8 academic interpretation and public access 73 alternative interpretation 76 Presentation and the public 77 visitor management 80 an educational resource 81 discussion 83 9 Summary and conclusions 84 Preservation 85 Presentation 86 Conclusion 86 Bibliography 87 iv the preServation of great ziMbabwe nIChOlas stanley-PRICe Director-General ICCROM Redefining the cultural landscape 49 Place information 51 the cultural landscape before the nineteenth century 52 the cultural landscape from the nineteenth century onwards 55 Foreword vegetation 57 Present setting 59 discussion 60 t gives me great pleasure to write a foreword to this important volume, which represents a sub- Great Zimbabwe: a valuable cultural resource 62 stantial contribution to the study of the management of sites recognized to be of heritage value. Cultural values 63 In 1983 there was published a critique, written from the point of view of an Australian Global and national values 65 IAboriginal, of current approaches to Australian archaeology (Ros Langford, ‘Our heritage - analysis of values for Great Zimbabwe 65 your playground’, cited in the references in this volume). The provocative title of that article finds its Cultural values for Great Zimbabwe 71 discussion 71 echo in the subtitle chosen by Webber Ndoro for his study of the preservation of Great Zimbabwe. It encapsulates neatly many of the issues with which the more reflective archaeologists, conservators Presenting the cultural heritage 73 and heritage managers contend when trying to reconcile their treatment of the past with the realities academic interpretation and public access 73 of the present. alternative interpretation 76 The issues concern the relative importance of different sources of information when trying to Presentation and the public 77 visitor management 80 understand the past (for example, archaeological research, archival sources or oral tradition); the role an educational resource 81 of local communities in managing heritage sites; and how the understanding of the past that results is discussion 83 best used by or presented to different audiences (local, national, international, academic, school-age and so on). Summary and conclusions 84 Webber Ndoro’s study, benefiting from his own intimate knowledge of the Great Zimbabwe site Preservation 85 stemming from his many years as its Curator, is unusual in many ways. It treats with a fresh eye not Presentation 86 only the contested interpretations of earlier decades regarding the builders of the Great Zimbabwe site, Conclusion 86 but also the physical conservation of its fabric and the wider cultural landscape in which the central Bibliography 87 site is situated. Returning then to the key theme of the interpretation and presentation of the site, the author calls attention strikingly to the gulf that often exists between academic knowledge and popular understanding of a site such as Great Zimbabwe. ICCROM is proud to publish this volume which, by means of a case-study of a world-renowned site, contributes substantially to current debates in heritage management. foreword v WebbeR ndORO Rome September 2005 Acknowledgements his book is a revised edition of Your monument, our shrine, the preservation of Great Zimbabwe, which was published as a PhD thesis in 2001 by the Department of Archaeol- ogy and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Sweden. I would like to thank Professor Paul Sinclair who was my supervisor for the thesis, Tand also the University of Uppsala for permission to publish this version of the book. I am also grateful for the support I received from the History Department of University of Zimbabwe, the Archaeology Department, Uppsala University, and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe during the original work on the thesis. I am particularly indebted to Gilbert Pwiti for his guidance and encouragement, and for our numerous stimulating discussions. I deeply appreciate the support and encouragement I received from ICCROM staff, particularly from Dr Nicholas Stanley-Price who encouraged me to make more widely available what was originally a thesis publication. I would also like to thank Robert Killick for his help in seeing the volume through the press. acknowledgemenTs 1 List of illustrations Figure 1.1 Map of southern africa 5 Figure 2.1 Map showing some of the sites regarded as sacred in Zimbabwe 9 Figure 2.2 distribution of stone age sites in relation to land apportionment 13 Figure 2.3 distribution of Rock art sites in relation to land apportionment 14 Figure 2.4 distribution of early Farming Communities sites in relation to land apportionment 14 Figure 2.5 distribution of later Farming Communities sites in relation to land apportionment 15 Figure 3.1 archaeological sites referred to in the text 16 Figure 3.2 Great Zimbabwe core area (after huffman 1997) 17 Figure 3.3 house remains from Posselt excavation 1987 (unpublished Collett excavation) 18 Figure 3.4 Great Zimbabwe with peripheral enclosures (after huffman 1977) 21 Figure 3.5 Illustrated dry-stone walling used for platform construction 23 Figure 3.6 Illustration of the components of a free-standing dry-stone wall 23 Figure 3.7 Wall styles at Great Zimbabwe (after Whitty 1961) 24 Figure 3.8 artistic reconstruction of prehistoric dhaka house (reconstructed from Posselt excavation) 25 Figure 4.1 General map of Zimbabwe (southern Rhodesia Publicity bureau 1929) 31 Figure 4.2 General map of Great Zimbabwe (Wallace 1938) 32 Figure 5.1 General preservation process implemented at Great Zimbabwe and related sites 44 Figure 5.2 steps cut into granite 46 Figure 5.3 Concrete steps 46 Figure 6.1 distribution of stone age sites in the study area 51 Figure 6.2 distribution of early Farming Communities (c.200-900 Ce) in the study area 52 Figure 6.3 developments at the centre of Great Zimbabwe (after sinclair et al. 1993b) 53 Figure 6.4 distribution of later Farming Communities (c.900-1700 Ce) in the study area 54 Figure 6.5 distribution of sites during the terminal Zimbabwe phase in the study area 55 Figure 6.6 distribution of historical places around Great Zimbabwe (post-1800) 56 Figure 6.7 land classification based on the landsat 7 image taken in 1999 59 Figure 6.8 land use around Great Zimbabwe in 1992 61 Figure 7.1 significance of the site as expressed by interviewees 66 Figure 7.2 areas at Great Zimbabwe considered important 67 Figure 7.3 Cultural values represented at Great Zimbabwe, as seen by various groups 68 Figure 7.4 benefits from Great Zimbabwe 69 Figure 7.5 Responses to the question of who owns Great Zimbabwe 70 Figure 8.1 huffman’s interpretation of core area at Great Zimbabwe (after beach 1998) 74 Figure 8.2 Responses to the question of who built Great Zimbabwe 75 Figure 8.3 sources of information about Great Zimbabwe 76 Figure 8.4 Illustration of relationship of houses and stone enclosures by lance Penny 1974. (note lack of human figures owing to Rhodesian censorship) 77 Figure 8.5 Illustrations to help visitors to interpret Great Zimbabwe by lance Penny 1976 77 Figure 8.6 Illustrated map of Great Zimbabwe by lance Penny (national Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe) 79 Figure 8.7 some of the illustrated interpretations from the educational Cd- ROM 82 2 the preServation of great ziMbabwe en arquitectura PlaTes Plate 3.1 aerial view of hill complex at 200 metres (Mt survey ltd 1994) 19 Plate 3.2 P-style stone wall on granite boulder foundation 20 Plate 3.3 aerial view of Great enclosure at 200 metres (Mt survey ltd 1994) 21 Plate 3.4 aerial view of the valley enclosures