Zimbabwe is the Shona name of the ruins, first recorded in 1531 by Vicente Pegado, Captain of the Portuguese Garrison of Sofala. Pegado noted that "The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies 'court'".[citation needed]
The name contains dzimba, the Shona term for "houses". There are two theories for the etymology of the name. The first proposes that the word is derived from Dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "large houses of stone" (dzimba = plural of imba, "house"; mabwe = plural of bwe, "stone").[8] A second suggests that Zimbabwe is a contracted form of dzimba-hwe, which means "venerated houses" in the Zezuru dialect of Shona, as usually applied to the houses or graves of chiefs.[9]
Today, the most recent consensus appears to attribute the construction of Great Zimbabwe to the Shona people.[73][74] Some evidence also suggests an early influence from the probably Venda speaking peoples of Mapungubwe.[55]
Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages,[58][59] based upon evidence of pottery,[60][61] oral traditions[54][62] and anthropology[1] and were probably descended from the Gokomere culture.[55] The Gokomere culture, an eastern Bantu subgroup, existed in the area from around 500 AD and is believed, from archaeological evidence, to constitute an early phase of the Great Zimbabwe culture.[7][54][63] The Gokomere culture likely gave rise to both the modern Mashona people, an ethnic cluster comprising distinct sub-ethnic groups such as the local Karanga clan[64] and the Rozwi culture, which originated as several Shona states.[65] Gokomere-descended groups such as the Shona probably contributed the African component of the ancestry of the Lemba.
The construction of Great Zimbabwe is also claimed by the Lemba. This ethnic group of Zimbabwe and South Africa has a tradition of ancient Jewish or South Arabian descent through their male line,[41][42] which is supported by recent DNA studies,[43] and female ancestry derived from the Karanga subgroup of the Shona.[44] The Lemba claim was also reported by a William Bolts (in 1777, to the Austrian Habsburg authorities), and by an A.A. Anderson (writing about his travels north of the Limpopo River in the 19th century) — both of whom were told that the stone edifices and the gold mines were constructed by a people known as the BaLemba.[45] Robert Gayre strongly supported the Lemba claim to Great Zimbabwe, proposing that the Shona artefacts found in the ruins were placed there only after the Bantu conquered the area and drove out or absorbed the previous inhabitants.[28] However, Gayre's thesis is not supported by more recent scholars such as Garlake or Pikirayi.[46][47] Posts: 2021 | From: Miami | Registered: Aug 2014
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