Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg

Nyanga at ground level - Ziwa National Monument

Nyanga National Park is home to some of the most extensive and well preserved ancient stone buildings and artefacts in Africa.

The Ziwa ruins are the remains of an agricultural settlement found high in the Nyanga portion of the Eastern Highlands.

The stone structures are thought to date back to the 1600s, during the time period classified as Zimbabwe’s Late Iron Age: a period when several monumental sites were constructed across the country.

Covering an area half the size of Aberdeen, the 33 square kilometre monument features a maze of dry-stone-walled forts, daub-covered houses, iron-smelting forges and pits once used to house cattle.

Ziwa is particularly noted for its impressive terracing: large steps created from stone and earth on the hillside, enabling farmers to take advantage of particularly fertile soil that covered the hills.

Archaeological investigations of the site have yielded pottery, rock art, and Iron and Stone-Age tools, some up to 200,000 years old.

These findings indicate that this area has been continuously occupied throughout Zimbabwe’s history by a number of different cultures, from the hunter-gatherer period to the present day.

There site is currently under consideration to be classified as a World Heritage Site for its archeological importance that reveals evidence of each of the links in Zimbabwe’s chain of early human history.

Though Ziwa was declared a National Monument in 1946 to protect this important historical landmark from damage, farmers still live and work in the region in nearby Nyanga Village.

There is a museum at the site, which provides visitors with information about the ruins; hundreds of tourists visit the site each year to marvel at the well-preserved stone structures and impressive remnants of a sophisticated Iron Age culture.