Great Zimbabwe’s Arts and Architecture: B+ (Brandon

          In the Great Zimbabwe’s empire there were very few pieces of art. But the most famous pieces of art, were the eight great birds carved of soap stone. The birds were mounted columns more than a yard tall and are themselves on average sixteen inches tall. The sculptures combine both human and bird like elements, substituting human features like lips for a beak and five-toed feet for claws. Excavated at the turn of the century, it is known that six of the sculptures came from the Eastern Enclosure of the Hill complex, but unfortunately their precise arrangement can only be guessed. Scholars have said that the birds served as emblems of royal authority, perhaps representing the ancestors of Great Zimbabwe's rulers.

          The most famous architectural structure of the Great Zimbabwe was the Great enclosure. The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across almost 1,800 acres of present-day southeastern Zimbabwe. Begun during the eleventh century A.D. by Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for more than 300 years in a local style that eschewed rectilinear for flowing curves. Neither the first nor the last of some 300 similar complexes located on the Zimbabwean plateau, Great Zimbabwe is set apart by the terrific scale of its structure. Its most formidable and large, commonly referred to as the Great Enclosure, has walls as high as 36 feet extending approximately 820 feet, making it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert. 

          Great Zimbabwe's most enduring and impressive remains are its stone walls. These walls were constructed from granite blocks gathered from the exposed rock of the surrounding hills. Since this rock naturally splits into even slabs and can be broken into portable sizes, it provided a convenient and readily available building resource. All of Great Zimbabwe's walls were fitted without the use of mortar by laying stones one on top of the other, each layer slightly more recessed than the last to produce a stabilizing inward slope. Early examples were coarsely fitted using rough blocks and incorporated features of the landscape such as boulders into the walls. Over the years the technique was refined, and later walls were fitted together closely and evenly over long, serpentine courses to produce remarkably finished surfaces. In other words the walls were held together by pure placement of the granite blocks and the weight of the blocks.

           The same size granite blocks helped keep the wall neat and stand strong. It was a technical advancement of their time. The massive 36 ft. walls kept them safe and sound due to the fact that invading forces could not get through the wall. And their art was creative because it had both bird like characteristics and human characteristics in their soap stone birds.