Terraces in Eastern Zimbabwe

 I lived in central Zimbabwe. We had paintings on rocks where they were split and so the area was flat and sheltered, and the local hill where the baboons lived was where they buried chiefs. 

But I was too busy treating people and learning the culture and language to go into these ancient sites: Until I got sick and the sisters arranged for me to spend a week vacation in a mission near Umtali.

Nearby, the local mountain was terraced, with stone walls every couple of feet. 

No one knew exactly who did this, but it inspired stories such as King Solomon's mines and the idea that the ancient Phonecians settled there and built these terraces: completely fiction of course and racist because it suggested only white people could do this, not the primitive natives. And indeed, there have been comparisons of the terraces in Zimbabwe to those in Yemen.

The beliefs of the Lemba tribe and DNA suggest there might be a splinter of truth in this, and of course, there was active trading via the Red Sea in ancient times, and later with Arab traders: elephant ivory, gold and slaves:  something that is only now being recognized. 

But anyway, the site of a mountainside terraced was impressive, but hard to find the history of who did this or why this was done. And yes, this was racist because no one wanted to recognize that Bantu farmers would do that.

What inspired this post however was that archeologists discovered "clay pits"near the Zimbabwe ruins complex, and after ignoring them, someone has said: Hey these are in an area that could be used to collect rainwater and the pits used to save it so it was there during the dry season.

Ary.ccheology.com:

  AARHUS, DENMARK—According to a statement released by Aarhus University, a new study at Great Zimbabwe, the eleventh-century capital of the Shona kingdom located in what is now southeastern Zimbabwe, indicates that the large depressions in the landscape surrounding the city’s surviving stone structures may have been used to store and manage the city’s water supply.

It had been previously thought that the depressions, which are known as dhaka pits, were made when clay was dug to build the city. However, remote sensing surveys and excavations conducted by an international team of researchers led by Innocent Pikirayi of the University of Pretoria suggest that the pits were positioned to collect surface water in areas where water runs when it rains, and collect and store seeping groundwater. The stored water would have allowed the people of Great Zimbabwe to manage their livestock and crops during the two dry seasons of the year, the researchers concluded.

Here is another report on the Univ of Zimabwe restoring the southern terraces of Great Zimbabwe 

The article mentions local stone masons. Yes, when I was there, they could make bricklike pieces of stone by finding a flat rock, and placing a fire on top. After a day or two, they would throw cold water on it, and the top layers would come off in slabs of rocks, which they then chisled into bricks very similar to the walls and towers in the Great Zimbabwe.

a photo of the walls to see how the flat stones were used:

https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/the-great-zimbabwe-ruins-outside-masvingo-in-zimbabwe-picture-id940133948

But the terraces of eastern Zimbabwe? Were they related? Done by the same tribe?

and why?

I looked for information for years, until I read Brian Fagan's book Elixir, where the author has a long section on East African water systems and noted these were similar to those found in Zimbabwe and on Drackenburg moutain in South Africa.

To understand a lot of this, you have to realize that rain is seasonal in Zimbabwe: so for months you might not have rain at all. So like other cultures, in the Middle East, Egypt, India, and China, these cultures managed the water supply.

Until the Sahara got so dry to make crossing it difficult, sub Saharan Africa was in touch with these civilizations, and of course, ideas spread via trade routes.

So back to the actual terraces. 
ZimFieldGuide has an article on them, noting the earliest terraces were dirt, but later they were made of stone.

In some areas, whole hillsides are covered with thirty or more lines of terracing. For example, at Ziwa Ruins, it has been estimated there are 800 kms of terracing in an area of 30 square kilometres. Examples of terracing patterns are observable from Google Maps at GPS reference: 18°08'10.13″S 32°38'15.50″E which is the position of the Ziwa Site Museum.

Alas, I can't find a decent photo of the terraces. But then, even when I was visiting and we walked up the mountain with the terraces to our right, we couldn't get a decent photo due to the brush and trees that almost hid them from a distance.

Robert Soper in his book The Terrace Builders of Nyanga presents detailed plans and sketches showing that the terraces show how the agricultural community grew crops on the terraced hillsides, raising livestock in the pit structures in the Nyanga highlands initially from about AD 1300 and then moved down into the lowlands by AD 1800 leaving the remains of their efforts over an area of over 8,000 square kilometres. He acknowledges that terracing is used in other parts of Africa, such as South Africa, East Africa, the southern region of Ethiopia and in Sudan, but nowhere are they used as extensively as Nyanga. There are differences in use however; Sutton observes that the terraces found in Tanzania were designed for irrigation, whilst the ones in Nyanga were mainly for soil conservation purpose,

The summary of the Book on terrace builders of Nyanga: includes this observation:

The ruins represent the remains of family homesteads and extensive stone-built agricultural terraces. Successive stages of development have been traced, starting with settlements on some of the highest peaks around AD 1300 and expanding gradually for five centuries to cover an area of over 5000 square kilometres. These stages show how the farming community adapted to and exploited the opportunities offered by the varied environments of the Nyanga highlands and lowlands to develop a specialised agricultural system integrating cultivation and livestock.

I would like to read the book, but alas it's not available on ScribD, and I can't afford 30 plus dollars plus postage to buy it from Amazon.

another book on the area:from Oxford press:

The Archaeology of Nyanga, Eastern Zimbabwe

• Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi

that oneThe Archaeology of Nyanga, Eastern Zimbabwelocked Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi from oxford press:The Nyanga district is however particularly famous for its stone constructions that come in a variety of forms, consisting of stone terraced hillsides, which extend for almost sixty-five miles from north to south and cover some twenty-three hundred square miles, as well as stone-lined pit structures, hilltop forts, stone-walled enclosures, and trackways. Dating from the 14th to the early 19th century, the culture is one of the Later Farming Community cultures of Zimbabwe. The stone architecture and several other cultural aspects differ from those of the more famous Zimbabwe Culture, such that, although the two entities partly overlapped chronologically, Nyanga represents a separate cultural development in Zimbabwe’s history. The purpose of the stone structures has been a subject of archaeological debate for some time. The majority of scholars generally agree that the terracing and pit structures were constructed for agricultural and animal herding practices.

 with the covid strictures on travel being removed, and with Zimbabwe becomeing more peaceful, the tourist industry should reopen: not just to Europeans but to South Africans and from China who want to see the beauties of that country.