African Art
The Trade Center/Royal Residence of the Great Zimbabwe
Within the jungles of Southern Africa is a palace that has been standing there for more than seven centuries. This group of walls and buildings whose "beautifully coursed walls curved and undulated sinuously over the landscape, blending into the boulder-strewn terrain as if having arisen there naturally" (Tyson). Of course this was not a naturally occurring site, but the people who built it were in doubt for many years because archeologist and others refused to believe that it could have been constructed by indigenous people. The site is called The Great Zimbabwe because it is the largest of more than 200 (Trade) which exist in different Southern African nations. It is believed to be a palace and trade center from which kings and shaman controlled a great amount of surrounding land. This paper looks at the history of the area, and the importance and function of the royal residence.
There is a great amount of conjecture regarding who actually originally constructed the buildings and walls, but there is no doubt that whatever people did were artists with stone. Many of the walls, especially those of the outer wall of the great enclosure, are more than 30 feet high and constructed of massive stones (Tyson). However the height and massive stones are not the most important part of the find. All of the stones were laid without mortar as can be seen in this picture.
All of the stones on the site are laid in precisely the same manner and have held together throughout all of those centuries. Of course, this is considered a marvel of structural engineering.
The site is believed to have been first seen by Europeans in the late 1500's when curious Portuguese tradesmen from the nearby West Africa...
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He admonishes contemporary African-Americans to look into the teachings and culture of the ancient Egyptians for inspiration. Carruthers goes into "The Instructions of Ptahhotep" which contained maxims to instruct in the correct values, modes of behavior and attitudes appropriate to those who would become civil servants from Prime Minister on down. The pharaohs, he speculates, received this teaching alongside children from all walks of life to instruct them on how
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