Introduction
A cultural landscape, according to the World Heritage Committee, is “a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values.” In simpler terms, therefore, it refers to a landscape with cultural properties that embody the combined activities of nature and of man. This translates that a cultural landscape, especially an organically evolved landscape, is a product of a natural landscape associated with a given cultural group. In this regard, culture is the agent, nature is the medium, and cultural landscape the result. The influence of the culture, which evolves with time, leads to the development of the landscapes in different phases. When an alien culture comes into play, it marks the beginning of the cultural landscape or formation of a new landscape over the remnants of the old one. This paper describes a cultural landscape I have found most interesting – the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape of South Africa. My description includes the origin of the landscape, ethnic composition of its people, the role of religion in the forming of Mapungubwe, role of water, land use/settlement patterns, as well as its vernacular landscape traits. I also include a map showing the location of the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape.
Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape
The Mapungubwe cultural landscape is to be found on the extreme north of the Republic of South Africa. Inscribed as a cultural landscape by the World Heritage Committee in 2003, the Mapungubwe cultural landscape sits on an open, expansive savannah of the Mapungubwe National Park at the meeting points of the Shashe and Limpompo rivers in the Limpopo Province. Unlike most cultural sites around the world, three neighboring countries – South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana – can each proudly identify with the Mapungubwe cultural landscape due to the fact that it lies alongside their borders. The cultural heritage landscape covers approximately 30,000 hectares with a surrounding buffer zone of about 100,000 hectares (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1). The map below shows the location of the Mapungubwe cultural landscape:
(Fleminger 55)
The origin of the Mapungubwe cultural landscape is particularly fascinating. The name ‘Mapungubwe’ is popularly believed to refer to a “place of the stone of wisdom.” In other quarters, however, it is believed that the name translates into “place of jackals” or “place where Jackals eat” or “hill of the Jackals” (Fleminger 14). Recent translations explain the meaning of Mapungubwe as “hill or place of stones/rocks/ hills” or “place of simmering or boiling rocks/stones/boulders.” What is for certain, however, is that Mapungubwe was the first and greatest South Africa’s kingdom that served as a prosperous and crucial trading centre between 900 and 1300 AD (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1). The settlement was home to the people from the Leopard’s Kopje culture, commonly known as the K2 culture. The people from the K2 culture are believed to have been from the ancestral Khoi Khoi culture that practiced agriculture along the Shashi-Limpopo Rivers. The area was home to a large number of elephants, which explains the premise of the international ivory trade at the time.
Its strategic placement at the crossing of the north-south and east-west trade routes in southern African saw it emerge as a trade control centre of gold and ivory throughout southern Africa, the Swahili trading ports in East Africa as well India and China. The natives of Mapungubwe gannered considerable amount of wealth from their exports of the rare gold and iron commodities and such imports as Persian glass beads and Chinese porcelain. The control of the international gold and ivory trade gave much political cloud to the people of the K2 culture in addition to inspiring rapid rise in their population to the extent of outgrowing the area and relocating to the Mapungubwe Hill by 1075 AD. This vibrant international trade enabled development of a Mapungubwe society flexible to ideological adjustments and new architectural and settlement planning. Recently unearthed archaeological evidence suggests that was probably the most significant inland settlement in the African subcontinent, where an elite class with sacred leadership enabled growth and development of the international trade (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1).
Religion played a significant role in the formation of Mapungubwe as a cultural landscape as we know it today. The name Mapungubwe is also used interchangeably with Tshavhadzimu which translates into a “revered place” or “place of the gods”. These can be backed up by a number of revered places in the Venda area such as Zwiawelo (sacred resting places), Zwifho (sacred places), and Zwitaka (sacred groves). Tshitaka Tsha Vhuganda (sacred grove of the Vhuganda) and Tshitaka Tsha Mungadi (the sacred grove of Mungandi” found at Ngovhela village are living examples of Zwitaka and Zwifho in the Mapungubwe cultural landscape. Present examples of Zwifha include Guvhukuvhu la Phiphidi (Phiphid waterfalls or river Mutshindudi), Lake Fundudzi, and Tivha la Tshiswavhathu (human cremation pool on Mutshindudi river). This great sense of reverence among the natives to explains why the Mapungubwe hill was left untouched throughout the centuries long after its abandonment. It is believed that the natives with strong religious beliefs were hesitant to reveal to strangers the details that could lead to the location of the Mapungubwe hill.
Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, SA.
(UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1)
The land use and settlements of the Mapungubwe cultural site reflect the agricultural way of life of its people. The people of Mapungubwe practiced crop farming given that the Limpopo and Shashe rivers seasonally flooded resulting into fertile alluvial soils, and the region had ideal climativ conditions. It is believed that Iron Age agriculturalists of the mid 1st millennium AD moved to Mapungubwe long before the arrival of hunters and gatherers. Archaeological remains from the period between 900-1200 AD suggest to Mapungubwe’s growth as a result of intense agricultural practices of its people. Zhizo sites, for instance, show that the first pioneer farmers settled at the banks of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers e.g. Schroda found on a plateau near Limpopo valley. The settlements also reflected a typical southern African pattern in which houses encircled a large cattle enclosure. Also, the rather large amounts of clay figures of humans and such domestic animals as cattle, sheep, goats, and goats found in Schroda point to potential centralized ritual ceremonies of the inhabitants. Schroda would be abandoned a century later paving way for the building of a new capital by the incoming Leopard’s Koje people. The demise of Mapungubwe as both an agricultural and trade hub came about around 1300 AD when there were adverse climatic changes. The initially warmer and wetter conditions that sustained agriculture along the Limpopo-Shashe valley were replaced with cooler and drier during the final two millennia. This forced the inhabitants to abandon Mapungubwe, leading to the emergence of Great Zimbabwe approximately 250km to its north. While the formerly huge agricultural enterprise of Mapungubwe has faded off, there are today a few farms growing citrus in mainly irrigated fields. Also, people in the valley regions make use of irrigation to practice large-scale commercial farming as well as game ranching.
The Mapungubwe cultural landscape has a couple of notable monuments: Mapungubwe and K2, which the South African government proclaimed as monuments in the early 1980s. also, the Mapungubwe Hill is a notable sandstone hill with outstanding vertical cliffs and a large flat top about 30m high and 300m long. It is covered with substantial deposits of soil layers. The hilltop is estimated to have been inhabited between 1220-1290 AD ((Fleminger 96). The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre built near the Mapungubwe National Park is an iconic building that is home to a famous golden rhino excavated by archaeologists as evidence of the former wealthy African kingdom. In 2009, the building emerged tops in the building of year competition.
Conclusion
The remains of the great Mapungubwe Kingdom evident in its present-day flora and fauna, and the impressive geo-morphological activities at the junction of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers makes the Mapungubwe cultural landscape a site to behold. As such, there can only be one conclusion about it – Mapungubwe cultural landscape in South Africa is one of the most beautiful cultural landscapes in the world with great universal significance.
References:
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape. [Online] Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1099. [November 22, 2013].
Fleminger, David. Mapungubwe: Cultural Landscape. Johannesburg: South Publishers, 2006. Print.
