Great Zimbabwe

Past
WHO built it: The Shona.
WHAT did they build: A walled city.
WHEN did they build it: About 900 years ago.
WHERE did they build it: In Zimbabwe, Africa.
WHY did they build it: For protection, shelter, and cermonial rites.
HOW did they build it: Probably with crude tools such as levers for maneuvering the stones.

Present
WHO found it: Portuguese sailors exploring Africa wrote that they found a walled city made out of stone. Later Karl Mauch found it.
WHAT did they find: A walled city known as Great Zimbabwe.
WHEN did they find it: The Portuguese in the 1500s and Karl Mauch in 1871.
WHER did they find it: In the nation now known as Zimbabwe.
WHY did they look for it: To find treasure and for the adventure of it. Karl Mauch was one of many Europeans that wondered if this city really existed.
HOW did Karl Mauch find it: Karl Mauch looked between the Limpopo and Zambesi Rivers in Africa.

Great Zimbabwe is a walled city entirely made out of stone. The walls, built from granite blocks, are over 30 feet high and contain over 15,000 tons of stone.

Great Zimbabwe was first discovered by Portuguese explorers, two of whom wrote in their journals about their discoveries. In the 1800s, Europeans read the explorers' journals. Most Europeans didn't think that there was really a walled city made out of stone in Africa. Some of them wondered if this city was part of a lost civilization from ancient times. A few people started searching for it in hopes of adventure and finding treasure.

In 1871, Karl Mauch searched for the walled city between the Limpopo and Zambesi Rivers. He found it on a tall hill. The whole structure was made of stone slabs, one on top of another, with no mortar! Karl Mauch thought that the Phoenicians, not the Africans, built the great walled city, because the Phoenicians had made stone cities in the Near East.

When Mauch went back to Europe, he told the Europeans and Americans about his findings. Many people went to Great Zimbabwe and dug there, using bad archaeological techniques and damaging the ruins. In 1902, the government there finally put a stop to it by passing laws. For the next forty years, only archaeologists were allowed to dig.

The archaeologists who excavated at Great Zimbabwe figured out from the artifacts they dug up that the city was made by the Shona, a native people to Africa.