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Watch Secrets of the Dead Africas Golden City, Season 24 Episode 1 on Dailymotion (2026).
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00:06This program contains selected drama reconstruction imagery created with the assistance of generative AI.
00:13Developed under editorial supervision and informed by archaeological and historical research.
00:25Deep in the heart of southern Africa lies a mysterious set of ruins.
00:30The dazzling remains of a once mighty civilization.
00:35Great Zimbabwe was one of the most prominent civilizations of the ancient world. It is so stunning.
00:42The site is larger than Pompeii or Stonehenge.
00:45But the people who built these spectacular structures left no written records.
00:51Great Zimbabwe was the lost city.
00:54Yet the ancient past of Great Zimbabwe wasn't lost. It was stolen.
01:01The early colonialists who came here said this is not African because Africans were incapable of achieving such greatness.
01:10This stripped the Africans of their identity because it denied them a relationship with their ancestral lands.
01:18We are here to change that.
01:21Now, an African-led team of archaeologists is uncovering the real story of a medieval African city.
01:30Who built Great Zimbabwe and when?
01:34Great Zimbabwe would have been astonishing to anyone.
01:38It's like flying over New York or London.
01:42What was life like for the inhabitants?
01:45Great Zimbabwe had this huge population.
01:48It was alive. Great Zimbabwe was alive.
01:51What powered and paid for this vast African metropolis?
01:55Wow, that's gold.
01:58It's magical.
02:00And why was it abandoned?
02:03The people who built Great Zimbabwe did not disappear.
02:06We are still very much alive today.
02:09It's a civilization history tried to forget.
02:13We are here to reclaim the history of Great Zimbabwe.
02:18Can cutting-edge science finally reveal the secrets of this ancient city?
02:24We are putting together the pieces to tell the correct story.
02:33This is who we are.
02:38Africa's golden city.
02:51Zimbabwe.
02:53Zimbabwe.
02:53A nation of epic highlands and breathtaking valleys in southern Africa.
03:01Bordered by the mighty Limpopo and Zambezi rivers.
03:07And rich in majestic wildlife.
03:10Its savannas and woodlands cover 100,000 square miles.
03:16At its heart lie the remains of a city.
03:24Great Zimbabwe is a special place.
03:30One of the wonders of the world.
03:37For one man, this massive site is the source of a lifelong fascination.
03:42My name is Shadrek Chirikure.
03:46I am Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford.
03:52I was born in southern Zimbabwe.
03:57About 45 minutes from Great Zimbabwe.
04:02When I was growing up, I was surrounded by symbols of Great Zimbabwe.
04:09The conical tower was on our one dollar coin.
04:13It was only when I started studying archaeology at university,
04:19that's when I started realising that there was this very big debate
04:23around who built Great Zimbabwe.
04:25Some people strongly believed that Great Zimbabwe was not built by Africans.
04:33I now wanted to know more about this place.
04:41Great Zimbabwe is 180 miles from the Indian Ocean
04:45in the country's southern region.
04:48Its vast maze of ruins stretches across 1,800 acres.
04:55To the north, a hilltop complex sits on a central summit more than 250 feet high.
05:03Below it, a web of stone walls creates a network of hand-built compounds.
05:10Surrounding an area more than 300 feet wide,
05:14the Great Enclosure is the largest pre-colonial man-made structure in southern Africa.
05:22Recent historical research has attempted to date the birth of Great Zimbabwe to around 1,300.
05:30At this point in history, medieval Europe boasted thriving cities like Florence, London and Paris.
05:37But urban enclaves were on the rise all over the world.
05:41In West Africa, we have the Malian empires.
05:46In East Africa, you have Kilwa, Zanzibar.
05:51Perhaps the most spectacular one in the entire region is Great Zimbabwe.
05:57Even to present day, people visit there.
06:01They must wonder how it just came to exist.
06:05Because around it, there's absolutely nothing.
06:08Who could have built it? When?
06:11The growth of European cities is well documented in the historical record.
06:16But Great Zimbabwe was an oral culture without written accounts of its history.
06:22And so its origins are harder to trace.
06:27But evidence of the daily lives of the people of Great Zimbabwe can still be found,
06:32if you know where to look.
06:35Hidden in the earth itself, the clues may answer the questions about this mysterious city that have long gone unanswered.
06:44The archeologist's goal is to find evidence that tells the real history of this great city.
06:56A world authority on Great Zimbabwe, Shadrek is leading a new archeological excavation
07:03to find out more.
07:07The team's first challenge, determining where on the massive site they should dig.
07:13Instead of the majestic walled enclosures, Shadrek chooses a precarious slope on the side of a steep hill.
07:22Why here?
07:28This is a rubbish dump.
07:31What we are hoping to find here is a record of what people were eating,
07:35and also things that they used every day, so that we can understand how did they live.
07:45Excavation director Dr. Russell Kapuma must now dig a trench in this challenging location.
07:51This is a very steep slope, so it becomes very, very difficult to walk on or just to navigate.
08:04Okay.
08:05Okay.
08:06Bryce.
08:11So I've just started excavating, and I just found this tooth.
08:18It could be cow.
08:20It's a decent size.
08:24Yes, that's a pot.
08:26This is local pottery.
08:27It is graphite burnished.
08:29We have literally just scrapped the surface, and all of this is turning up.
08:35Cattle teeth and pottery shards are a promising start.
08:40But suddenly, Shadrek spots something unusual.
08:47At first glance, this rock-like lump could be just another fragment of a cooking pot.
08:54But held in the sunlight, it suddenly sparkles.
08:58There are some tiny pieces of metal.
09:04Can these traces of metal reveal more about Great Zimbabwe?
09:14The University of Oxford's research labs lie 5,000 miles away from Great Zimbabwe.
09:20Here, the team will use cutting-edge science to analyze the recovered artifacts.
09:27Their first challenge, what are the tiny traces of metal?
09:32The scanning electron microscope allows us to look at the surface at a very high resolution.
09:40What is of major interest are these very bright things here.
09:48We will soon find out, because the chemistry will actually tell us.
09:53So, let's take this little spot here.
09:58And, oh, wow.
10:00Yeah, this peak here, AU, that is gold.
10:04This is a piece of crucible.
10:08Designed for purifying metals, crucibles were made of clay and had to withstand the melting temperature of gold,
10:15which is nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
10:19A metals expert, Shadrek recognizes the pattern of gold droplets as typical of a crucible.
10:27And the shard of clay is the right shape to come from a pot, confirming this is a crucible.
10:35So, we can see for sure that this crucible was used for processing gold.
10:44Was the gold locally sourced?
10:47Does it explain the existence of this mighty city and its prosperity?
10:54The microscope has also detected other metals.
10:57Could they offer clues about where the gold came from?
11:01Wow.
11:02This is even more interesting, because we are getting a lot of lead.
11:08Finding lead is a bit of a surprise.
11:13Some of the sources of gold around Great Zimbabwe, about 30 to 50 kilometers to the west,
11:20they are associated with lead.
11:23So, this tells us that this gold would have come from those mines.
11:31The lead is a chemical fingerprint linking the gold to a region west of Great Zimbabwe,
11:37where the rocks contained lead as well as gold.
11:41Although the ancient mines are long gone,
11:44archaeological evidence reveals they were part of a spectacular regional abundance of gold deposits.
11:50One great thing about the Zimbabwean Plateau is that it is extremely rich in gold.
11:59The mapping of archaeological sites has actually found more than 6,000 pre-industrial gold deposits in the region.
12:10The crucible reveals that gold was mined nearby, then brought to Great Zimbabwe to be processed.
12:18And fragments from over a hundred crucibles, like the one the team has discovered,
12:23have been found in sites across the settlement, suggesting a massive city-wide operation.
12:31People were working gold all over Great Zimbabwe, on the hill, in the valley, and in the surrounding settlements.
12:39So, the size of Great Zimbabwe's gold-working industry was staggering.
12:46Back at the trench, the team finds another glittering clue.
12:50And this time, Shadrach knows exactly what it is.
12:55Oh, wow, amazing!
12:57Wow, that's gold!
12:59William, that's wonderful!
13:01Yeah, it is indeed gold.
13:03This is unmistakably gold.
13:06It does not rust.
13:08It glitters.
13:10And it's heavy.
13:12And we are very happy to have found this.
13:15Thank you, William!
13:24Shadrach takes the new discovery to a secure location, where items made from gold mined around Great Zimbabwe are kept
13:32under lock and key.
13:36It's magical.
13:39Great Zimbabwe is gold.
13:43These are very, very fine pieces of wire, which would have been used perhaps as a bracelet, or perhaps as
13:52a necklace.
13:53This is an intricately made object.
13:56It's very, very beautiful and exquisite.
13:59That's Great Zimbabwe's gold craftsmanship at its best.
14:09The first chapter in the story of Great Zimbabwe is the sizeable role gold played in the spectacular city's growth.
14:18Great Zimbabwe was truly a city of gold.
14:24Plentiful local mineral reserves brought wealth to the city, which explains how it funded its monumental labor-intensive architecture.
14:34The presence of gold near Great Zimbabwe and the number of crucibles discovered there suggests an extensive gold-working industry.
14:44But over the last century, only small amounts of gold have been found in the main enclosures.
14:51Why?
14:57This is the western enclosure of the Hill Complex.
15:01The rudimentary brickwork tells archaeologists it's the oldest structure on the site, where Great Zimbabwe began.
15:11Looking at the uneven surface level, it's clear tons of earth have been torn out of the ground.
15:19So this depression is a result of excavations in the late 19th century, as well as in the early 20th
15:28century.
15:30Modern mining efforts sliced into the earth, removing huge quantities of potentially evidence-rich dirt.
15:39They were prospecting for gold in this very enclosure.
15:43So the ground level would have been very, very high up.
15:47So they came here, dug, and then sieved the soil to remove some gold and threw it away.
15:57Who was responsible for stripping the gold from Great Zimbabwe's soil?
16:08In the middle of the 19th century, Africa was mostly populated and ruled by Africans.
16:15But European powers greedily eyed the continent's rich mineral resources.
16:22They began what came to be known as the Scramble for Africa.
16:28The Scramble for Africa began around 1880.
16:34Every white settler who was coming to Southern Africa at that time dreamt of one day finding the gold.
16:44At the Berlin Conference of 1884, France, Britain, Germany and other European powers met to carve up Africa among them.
16:54By the early 20th century, around 90% of the continent had been seized as colonial territories.
17:02Britain was the controlling power where Great Zimbabwe was located.
17:07Led by diamond mine millionaire Cecil Rhodes, the colony was named Southern Rhodesia.
17:14By the time the British arrived, Great Zimbabwe's most powerful days were long past.
17:21The colonists found mostly unoccupied ruins.
17:25But just the existence of the ruins was a challenge to the entire colonial project.
17:30The standard European ideology was they were coming into this continent to basically civilize primitive peoples.
17:40Great Zimbabwe presented a problem.
17:45How could you civilize these people when in fact they had their own civilization?
17:53The epic structures of Great Zimbabwe bore witness to a sophisticated ancient culture.
17:59In order to justify their occupation, the colonists declared Africans hadn't built Great Zimbabwe at all.
18:07It was the Phoenicians. It was the people from the Bible who had built Great Zimbabwe.
18:15Great Zimbabwe was actually the remains of the Queen of Sheba.
18:20The British claimed the site's grandeur proved it must have been built by ancient visitors from the Mediterranean or the
18:27Middle East.
18:28To support their claims, they sent their own archaeologists to Great Zimbabwe.
18:34Theodore Bent arrived in 1891.
18:37At the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, curator Ashley Kutu reads from Bent's original report.
18:45It explains why Africans couldn't have built Great Zimbabwe and reveals the racist attitudes that lay behind Europe's colonial expansion
18:54into Africa.
18:55So this text is the report of Theodore Bent.
19:00From this mass of fresh evidence, we may safely consider that the builders of these mysterious structures were well-versed
19:07in geometry and studied carefully the heavens.
19:10It quite excludes the possibility of any Negroid race having had more to do with their construction than as the
19:17slaves of a race of higher cultivation.
19:19For it is a well-accepted fact that the Negroid brain never could be capable of taking the initiative in
19:26work of such intricate nature.
19:30It's very shocking, especially as an archaeologist, reading it.
19:37This passage is shockingly racist.
19:40It really shows the real blindness that Bent and others would have had towards the possibility that local people could
19:50have made Great Zimbabwe.
19:52And they have to find another explanation because it can't be that local people have built the site.
20:01The first white explorers to come to Great Zimbabwe, they have their own preconceived notions about the local population.
20:09They feel these are barbaric, these are backward, and it's unimaginable to them that these people that they looked down
20:16upon can have anything to do with a structure that's as amazing and magnificent as Great Zimbabwe.
20:25Soon, amateur British archaeologists and gold hunters descended on the site.
20:30The soil was looted for treasure, and much of the gold was melted down, sold, or brought back to Europe,
20:39along with other items that became part of private or museum collections.
20:44The Pitt Rivers Museum houses one of the world's largest collections of global artifacts found in the 19th century.
20:52Much of the treasure of Great Zimbabwe ended up here.
20:57These are glass beads from Great Zimbabwe.
21:02They are absolutely so tiny, and they're just in amazing colors.
21:08They were taken from Great Zimbabwe in late 19th, early 20th century by Victorian explorers.
21:17These objects, we do not know exactly where they come from on the site, so it really just completely removes
21:23it from the last person who touched it and used it.
21:28It's really taking it away from that human context and that human touch, that human kind of connection with that
21:35object.
21:39Treasure hunters and looters tossed out much of the evidence of African occupation at Great Zimbabwe.
21:46Intricate layers of historical material that modern archaeologists would have studied were destroyed, tossed away as trash.
21:56With the grand enclosures stripped of evidence, the team is forced to excavate at sites like the steep hillside.
22:05Here, at least, the material is undisturbed.
22:09Clearly, the colonists were wrong.
22:12But if people from other parts of the world didn't build the city, who did?
22:20Typically, archaeologists would study bones to answer this question, and there is no shortage of them at the trench.
22:27Unfortunately, they aren't the right kind of bones.
22:31It looks like we have a lot of cattle bones here.
22:35Yeah, all types. We've got some mandibles, so the jaw bones.
22:39These look like long bones, so from the legs.
22:42So it looks like we have all parts of cattle.
22:44They're not articulated, so it doesn't look like it was a burial.
22:46This looks like it was possibly a meat beast.
22:52We're already finding, right at the beginning of excavations, tons and tons of cattle bones, thousands of them.
22:56Two by one meter here, and we're getting all these bones, so if we extend that over the whole of
23:02the site,
23:02I'm assuming there are going to be multiple herds, probably spread across the landscape, and thousands of cattle.
23:09I mean, just so many.
23:11The massive quantity of bones suggests that in Great Zimbabwe, cattle were more than just a source of food.
23:19Cattle was a major source of wealth.
23:22Great Zimbabwe was a great market for cattle.
23:26Dowery, for example, building alliances were based on cows.
23:31When you own a lot of cows, you don't own them to eat them.
23:35They are wealth, and they are a bank.
23:40Great Zimbabwe wasn't just rich in gold.
23:43It was rich in cattle, too, providing a second source of wealth and power.
23:49But these bones provide no clues about the city's inhabitants.
23:54In fact, no human remains have ever been found at Great Zimbabwe.
24:01What happened to the people who lived here?
24:05No burials have been found here at Great Zimbabwe.
24:09It is not unusual because the archaeology depends on where you dig.
24:15I think it is a matter of time.
24:17People will eventually find them.
24:22Lacking human remains, the team must search for other evidence of the people who built Great Zimbabwe.
24:29Do the remarkable structures themselves offer any insight?
24:33This is the Great Enclosure.
24:38This is the most imposing structure here at Great Zimbabwe.
24:44It is six metres wide at the base and 11 metres to the top.
24:52The Great Enclosure's interior measures more than 60,000 square feet in size.
25:02Its majestic walls were built without mortar and are estimated to be made of more than one million stone blocks.
25:12What we are looking at here are centuries of developing a building technique that had become so refined.
25:21For archaeologist Munyaranti Manyanga, the most important detail is the pattern at the very top of the wall.
25:29The decoration that you see, which is a chevron pattern, runs especially on this eastern section of the building.
25:41It's a design that archaeologists have seen elsewhere.
25:47Dozens of other stone structures can be found all over the region.
25:51None are as big as Great Zimbabwe, but they too feature hand-cut, dry stone walls, terraces, and the distinctive
26:00chevron pattern.
26:02Archaeological analysis dates these sites to as early as the 11th century.
26:06They're spread across present-day Zimbabwe and surrounding regions of southern Africa.
26:13They have not been found anywhere else.
26:16Together, these stone structures demonstrate that Great Zimbabwe was not a one-off.
26:22In fact, it was the masterpiece of an African stone-building civilization that spread across the region.
26:29We like to talk about the Mayan building tradition that today spreads in many nations across Central America.
26:39I think we're looking at something closer to that.
26:43The Great Zimbabwe civilization, visible archaeologically, that in fact inhabits much of the southern half of the continent.
26:54The hallmark of this great civilization is its monumental dry stone walls.
27:01Built at least 500 years ago, how were these vast and intricate structures constructed without modern tools?
27:12On the steep hillside, the team finds an answer.
27:17We are here on the terraces at Great Zimbabwe.
27:21This terrace has collapsed.
27:24If we do not repay it, the whole thing can be dangerous.
27:30In the first phase of Great Zimbabwe's existence, these terraces were built around the hill.
27:37They created flat, step-like platforms for building houses, which meant the early population could stay close to the defensive
27:46stronghold of the hilltop complex.
27:50Granite was freely available in the local area, even on the hill itself.
27:55The builders of Great Zimbabwe cut granite stones and skillfully joined the pieces in place, making use of natural features
28:05as they went.
28:07Local Shona stonemason Tinashe carefully rebuilds this wall using stones from the original construction.
28:15We have to make sure the stones are well-bonded to avoid collapse again.
28:23The older people used to build these structures, so I learned from them.
28:30There are skills which are derived from the ancestors.
28:36Wall-building techniques handed down through the generations are vital to the preservation of Great Zimbabwe.
28:42But they are also a clue to who built the staggering city.
28:48The historical use of local traditions at the site suggests that the indigenous population, not outsiders, built this wonder.
28:59And the team discovers more evidence at the trench to support this theory.
29:06Wow, look at this.
29:09Amazing.
29:10This is a fragment of a soapstone bowl.
29:15The more complete of these soapstone bowls can be between 50 centimetres and a metre in diameter.
29:22So these are very big things, which could have been used for ceremonies, which could have been used for display.
29:30The tradition of carving soapstone is still alive today, confirming that Great Zimbabwe is Shona in construction.
29:41The Shona are a Bantu ethnic group who have lived in this part of Africa for more than a thousand
29:47years.
29:48Today, more than half the population of Zimbabwe is Shona.
29:53Soapstone carving remains a widely practiced Shona art form.
29:58The same traditions that were practiced at Great Zimbabwe then, you still have them in these communities now.
30:05The material culture is very much similar to the material culture that you would find in a normal Shona village
30:13if you go out there today.
30:15Which is testament to the fact that the people who used to live at Great Zimbabwe, who constructed Great Zimbabwe,
30:22the forefathers of the people who are still in the village today.
30:28Archaeologists have no doubt. The ancestors of the Shona, not people from the Mediterranean or the Middle East, built Great
30:36Zimbabwe.
30:40But in the city's heyday, where did people live? The only structures to survive are the stone built enclosures.
30:49But at the trench, Shadrach finds hidden evidence of other buildings here.
30:56This is clay. This clay is known as daka. This is the outer side of the house. And these are
31:04the impressions of the wood. These grooves here. These are the impressions of the poles that held the house up.
31:12The pole and clay building technique used in the ancient city can still be seen today in rural Zimbabwe.
31:21But compared to these modern villages, how big did Great Zimbabwe get?
31:27Evidence from across the site suggests there were thousands of daka-built houses.
31:35These remains, together with stone walls and excavations of settlement areas like the new trench, reveal just how large the
31:44city became.
31:47From its origins on the hilltop, Great Zimbabwe exploded in size. Centered around the spectacular Great Enclosure, the city became
31:58a massive interconnected metropolis of houses, stone structures and farmsteads.
32:04With houses numbering in the thousands, archaeologists are able to estimate population size.
32:12The population of Great Zimbabwe at its peak would have been between 10,000 and 20,000. So that was
32:21a very big place, which was always bustling.
32:24Great Zimbabwe was one of the biggest concentrations of people in Africa, south of the Sahara.
32:32Great Zimbabwe was a huge urban center with a massive population.
32:38But this raises new questions.
32:43Why did people settle here?
32:45How did they sustain themselves with food and water?
32:49And what transformed a hilltop fortress into an African metropolis?
32:55By now, the trench is nearly eight feet deep.
32:58It's a rich scene filled with artifacts from across centuries, leading Shadrach to believe they have reached the city's most
33:05powerful era.
33:07We are talking of the period late 14th, 15th century.
33:11We can now say, well, we are getting to the levels when Great Zimbabwe was at its height.
33:16Boom, things were happening.
33:20And a discovery sheds new light on the city's explosion in wealth and population.
33:28I can see this piece, which is greenish.
33:32Uh-oh. Yeah.
33:33Here we go.
33:35The green corrosion is a distinctive mark of copper.
33:38I am looking at a fragment of a copper bracelet.
33:43So this greenish metal here is copper, which they cut a very fine wire and wound it around a piece
33:52of grass.
33:53That's all.
33:55Here is this copper wire.
33:57Okay.
33:58Yeah.
33:59Where did this copper bracelet come from?
34:03Could its presence explain how a small settlement grew into a heavily populated city?
34:13Once back in Oxford, Shadrach takes the bracelet for analysis.
34:20So I'm setting up a portable X-ray fluorescence machine to analyze the copper from Great Zimbabwe.
34:38So these are the different elements making up the composition of the object.
34:44We can see a very nice and long peak for copper.
34:50And we have something else.
34:53This is tin.
34:54We have a tin bronze.
34:56It was made by mixing or alloying copper and tin.
35:03The bracelet isn't pure copper.
35:06It's bronze.
35:08Producing it requires expert knowledge and the right ingredients.
35:12Tin is very rare in nature.
35:16The nearest source of tin that was worked during the time of Great Zimbabwe is located in a present-day
35:24South Africa in a place known as Roiburg.
35:29Running roughly 500 miles, the trade route from Roiburg in present-day South Africa would take about a month each
35:36way to travel on foot.
35:38South African traders brought tin to Great Zimbabwe, exchanging it for the city's treasures like gold.
35:47Great Zimbabwe wasn't an isolated settlement, but part of a trading network that stretched across Southern Africa.
35:55Trade brought wealth and attracted more people to the city, leading to its huge expansion and booming population.
36:04And another discovery is about to change the picture even more radically.
36:11Archaeologist Mu Chen Zhou has been examining shards of pottery from the trench.
36:17One grabs her attention.
36:24You can see the white is here, which is the body, and then this glaze, which is, which is apple
36:32green.
36:34This pottery fragment is very different from the earth-brown shards of local pots the team has found so far.
36:42Where did this green pottery come from?
36:46At the Oxford Laboratory, Mu Chen places the fragment in an ultra-high-resolution microscope.
36:56The broken edge is rough and textured, but the unbroken glazed surface is incredibly smooth.
37:04For Mu Chen, it's a significant find.
37:08This is a glaze, and then you can see how uniform it is.
37:12A glaze of such smoothness requires firing at very high temperatures, over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
37:20There was only one place in the world that could produce these results at the time.
37:26Only China had the technology and then the engineering to fire at such a high temperature.
37:32So this one is a high-temperature pottery produced in Southern China.
37:38It's a Lungchen solida.
37:41Lungchen celadon is a famously beautiful style of Chinese pottery known for its jade green glaze.
37:49Found at Great Zimbabwe, it was produced in the kilns of Lungchen in Southeast China.
37:57Highly prized, it was traded throughout Europe and the Middle East as a sign of wealth and status.
38:04It is quite amazing that you find this kind of pottery at Great Zimbabwe.
38:11For such pottery to travel all the way through Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Persian Gulf, all the way
38:18across the Indian Ocean, it has traveled for a very long way.
38:27As the trench deepens, the team is finding other evidence of international trade, including a large number of glass beads
38:36not produced in Southern Africa.
38:41Archaeologists have discovered glass items from around the world, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and regions around Iran.
38:50This African civilization had contact with different groups of people across continents and oceans.
38:59Great Zimbabwe was a truly global place.
39:05Soapstone carvings, the remains of houses, and traded items ranging from tin to Chinese pottery.
39:15All evidence that Great Zimbabwe was built by ancestors of the Shona people.
39:20The city growing as a result of this African and global trade.
39:26But with a population of up to 20,000 people, the sheer size of Great Zimbabwe raises another question.
39:34Much of the surrounding territory is susceptible to drought.
39:38In an era before modern farming techniques, how did the city feed such a massive population?
39:48Archaeologist Munyaradzi Manyanga believes answers may lie in the heart of the great enclosure.
39:56The conical tower is a structure comprising of regularly shaped blocks.
40:02The conical tower is the pinnacle of this architectural achievement here at Great Zimbabwe.
40:10This emblematic tower is completely solid.
40:14What purpose did it serve?
40:16This structure is highly symbolic.
40:19Its shape is very similar to the historical grain storage facilities that you find throughout the country.
40:28Grain storage was critical for survival in Africa.
40:32Today, African granaries still show similarities in design to the conical tower from the past.
40:40But what was stored in these granaries?
40:43Where were the fields and water supplies?
40:47And how did they grow enough to feed up to 20,000 people?
40:54An object emerges from the excavation that might answer those questions.
41:01What have we got and where have we got it?
41:04Oh, wow!
41:06It's an amazing pot.
41:08We didn't know we were going to find this big pot.
41:12In over a century of digging, it's the largest pot ever found at Great Zimbabwe.
41:18Because this is a very big pot, we need to try and remove it as intact as possible.
41:25Vessels like this were used by individuals for storing grain.
41:30So it's likely the trench contains fragments of what people in Great Zimbabwe ate.
41:36But spotting a single kernel of grain is much harder than finding gold.
41:48In Oxford, archaeobotanist Dr. Alice Williams has soil from the Great Zimbabwe trench.
41:54And a novel way to separate it from other material.
41:59So soil like this, it's really hard to tell what's in it.
42:03We use water as a really simple method to recover the organic material.
42:10The water washes the soil away, leaving tiny pieces of organic matter that can be analyzed.
42:17We systematically sampled throughout the trench.
42:20So we're getting a level of information that we haven't had from Great Zimbabwe before.
42:34Just trying to get it into focus.
42:37Alright, so, lots of bits of wood charcoal.
42:40You can tell it's wood charcoal because it's slightly shinier and will have these long lines in the side.
42:47Oh, there's a grain, look at that.
42:50This is really well preserved.
42:53Great, we'll put that in a separate dish.
42:57Oh, there's another bit.
42:59This one looks a bit more well cooked.
43:03It's a great sample.
43:06Yep, this is going to be a good one.
43:09An expert on the plants of Africa, Alice identifies the grain she has discovered.
43:16Sorghum.
43:19Sorghum is a really interesting grain. It's like wheat. It is one of the most important grains grown in the
43:27world today, even though we haven't heard of it in Europe as much.
43:30Sorghum is a nutritious grain full of vitamins and minerals and a good amount of protein. This would have given
43:36people a lot of energy.
43:39A calorie dense crop would have been important for the residents of a bustling city like Great Zimbabwe.
43:46But is that the only reason they grew sorghum?
43:51You also have to ensure that the crops are resilient. And sorghum is a drought resistant crop. So sorghum would
44:00have been a great crop to grow in the region because it's very good at growing in low rainfall conditions
44:05and we're finding a lot of it so they must have been growing sorghum.
44:09Sorghum's drought resistance makes it perfect for any dry periods that might have affected Great Zimbabwe.
44:17Archaeological evidence of sorghum has been found all over Great Zimbabwe, suggesting a broad system of cultivation that supported the
44:26city.
44:28Archaeologists also believe the favorable climate and terrain helped provide crucial sources of water.
44:34Summer rains were collected and stored.
44:38Local rivers supplied water and grazing grounds.
44:42And the granite landscape contained natural underground reservoirs that preserved water year round.
44:53Great Zimbabweans were able to maintain food and water security, enabling the city to grow and flourish.
45:01Part of an ideal set of conditions that, when taken together, make this extraordinary African city possible.
45:10Rich local resources, extensive African and intercontinental trade networks, a massive gold working industry, and an ideal valley location.
45:23Supported by these conditions, Great Zimbabwe grew and prospered for centuries.
45:31At its peak, the sheer size of Great Zimbabwe will have been astonishing to anyone.
45:39It's like flying over New York or London.
45:43Great Zimbabwe was a global city.
45:52What would this global city have been like for the people who called it home?
45:58If you look at today, Great Zimbabwe, it looks abandoned.
46:03This would not have been the Great Zimbabwe during the 13th and 14th centuries.
46:09It was alive. Great Zimbabwe was alive.
46:12There would be men busy with their crafts, women preparing meals and processing grain.
46:19There were children playing around. Music, dance.
46:24Today, Shona people still practice the same cultural traditions that once animated Great Zimbabwe.
46:31Shona people, as part of their religion, they perform ceremonies associated with thanksgiving.
46:41There are echoes of that spirituality in communities today.
46:47People still offer thanksgiving ceremonies, invite relatives and friends, and enjoy, while they start thanking their ancestors.
46:57We must imagine people being part of this place. It must have been exciting to be here.
47:10From the 14th to the 15th centuries, Great Zimbabwe was at its height, the largest and most powerful city-state
47:18in southern Africa.
47:19And yet, the archaeological record reveals that slowly, things began to change.
47:29In certain areas where excavations have been conducted, one notices an abrupt end to human occupation.
47:40Post-17th century, we seem to have a decline in the number of people living here.
47:48By the time the colonists arrived in the 19th century, the site was, as one of them wrote, a mass
47:55of ruins.
47:57What happened?
48:01What seems to have been the case is that the massive population was becoming too much for the kind of
48:10restricted space in Great Zimbabwe.
48:12If you are looking of 20,000 people concentrated at just one point, it is very clear that that would
48:19have created numerous problems.
48:22It doesn't seem to have been designed to accommodate a huge population.
48:30Despite relying on drought-resistant sorghum, archaeologists believe dry conditions and over-farming may have contributed to the decline of
48:39the city.
48:41Increasing droughts, too many people on the landscape, the pressures on farming would also have persuaded some people to move
48:50elsewhere, to look for better lives.
48:59A combination of factors likely led to Great Zimbabwe's decline.
49:06But as the team reaches the end of its excavation, there's a final question they are still determined to answer.
49:15Doubts remain about when the city was founded.
49:19Some recent researchers have suggested a date of 1300.
49:24Can the team finally say when Great Zimbabwe was first settled?
49:31Across the dig, they have collected organic matter like bones and charcoal, which they believe will provide important information.
49:40In Oxford, technicians combine the material recently collected with other organic finds and subject them to radiocarbon dating, which will
49:50reveal the city's earliest human habitation.
49:54But can they pinpoint when the city itself was founded?
50:01We are looking at radiocarbon dates for Great Zimbabwe.
50:06All of them new from the lowest layers, which is some of the earliest occupation.
50:12It used to be thought that Great Zimbabwe started around 1300 AD.
50:20What these days tell us is that Great Zimbabwe started just after AD 1000.
50:27We have moved back by 300 years.
50:32The new discovery means Great Zimbabwe is three centuries older than recent studies suggested.
50:40Its influence as an African population center and trading hub was even greater than some earlier archaeologists had thought.
50:50This is the evidence we have been hoping for.
50:53Now is the time to make the story and to be excited about new narratives for Great Zimbabwe.
51:01This is big time.
51:04This discovery that Great Zimbabwe is in fact 300 years older than we previously thought basically means it was a
51:14much greater civilization.
51:17It covered a much larger area.
51:20It's not wrong to call it the greater Zimbabwe civilization that you can trace from the Indian Ocean all the
51:30way to the Atlantic.
51:37In April 1980, after nearly a century of colonial and white minority rule, the British flag was lowered in Rhodesia
51:47for the final time.
51:48And a new independent African nation was born.
51:54In the fight for independence, an archaeological site became central to the struggle for a new national identity.
52:03African nationalists were able to rally people for the liberation struggle using Great Zimbabwe as a rallying point to say
52:11that's our city that belongs to us and we need to fight for that.
52:18The new nation needed a new name.
52:22Citizens were inspired by the ancient city, naming the country Zimbabwe.
52:28Great Zimbabwe is derived from Zimbabwe meaning houses build of stones.
52:35So that becomes the Zimbabwean identity.
52:39Zimbabwe now identifies itself as people who are known for building houses using stones.
52:46The new country also needed a national symbol.
52:50An image of a carved statue of a bird found at Great Zimbabwe was proudly added to the new national
52:58flag.
52:59If you look at our national teams which travel all over the world, they carry that bird.
53:05It has become a symbol for the nation.
53:14Over a century ago, a racist ideology declared that Great Zimbabwe couldn't have been built by Africans.
53:22These ideas cast a long shadow.
53:25But finally, a new generation of Zimbabwean archaeologists is taking back Great Zimbabwe's story.
53:35Proving the city was built by ancestors of the contemporary Shona people, not outsiders.
53:42Great Zimbabwe is African in origin and of great antiquity and a civilization.
53:48Their discoveries have shown how its inhabitants forged a civilization of truly global significance.
53:57Great Zimbabwe was in fact more magnificent than we have ever imagined.
54:03A civilization that did not disappear, but lives on in the local people today.
54:10Great Zimbabwe is more than just an archaeological site.
54:14The people of Great Zimbabwe are very much alive today in contemporary Zimbabwe.
54:20It brings a sense of pride in terms of what was achieved here.
54:26The lost city of gold has finally found the people to tell its story.
54:32For them, it's just the beginning.
54:36Great Zimbabwe is not the only site whose history has been confiscated through colonialism.
54:46Reclaiming Great Zimbabwe and reclaiming the past is also about reclaiming identity.
54:54My hope is that Great Zimbabwe will inspire those places throughout the world to reclaim their own stories erased by
55:04colonialism.
55:05Concerned
55:05School
55:05Using The Great Zimbabwe