The Great Zimbabwe Mystery: Africa's Lost Medieval Metropolis

In southeastern Africa stands one of the continent's most impressive archaeological sites - Great Zimbabwe, a massive stone city built without mortar that housed up to 18,000 people at its peak. The walls tower 36 feet high, constructed from over a million granite blocks fitted together so precisely they've stood for 800 years. But when European explorers discovered it in the 1800s, they couldn't accept that Africans had built something so magnificent.

Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a powerful medieval trading empire that controlled gold and ivory routes between Africa's interior and the Indian Ocean coast. The kingdom minted its own currency, traded with China and Persia, and displayed wealth that rivaled European kingdoms. Yet colonizers invented wild  ...