HistoryThe Mapungubwe World Heritage cultural landscape, situated on the farm Greefswald at the junction of the Limpopo and Shashi rivers on the border of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, falls under the management of South African National Parks. This article presents a close examination of ...
was an Iron Age settlement and kingdom which flourished between the 11th and 13th century CE. It was perhaps southern Africa's first state. Mapungubwe, whose name means either 'stone monuments' in reference to the large stone houses and walls of the site or 'hill of the jackal', prospered...
The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape is one of the profound treasures of southern Africa's social and archaeological history, appropriately declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 2003. Contained within this landscape is indispensable...
Such behaviour was encouraged by the country's proclamation of the site as a national heritage and the publicity accorded to the wisdom of the unknown pioneers of African civilisation in Mapungubwe graves. Numerous South African societies have, after such proclamation, told ...
site went into decline from the end of the 13th century CE, most likely due to an exhaustion of local resources, including agricultural land, and the movement of interregional trade to such sites as Great Zimbabwe further north. Mapungubwe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 CE...