Great Zimbabwe is a stone-walled city near Masvingo, built by ancestors of the Shona people, with recent scholarship also crediting Shona and Venda peoples. The infobox dates construction to the 11th century, while the text says settlement began around 1000 AD and major building ran from the 11th to the 15th century. No architect is named.
The walls are mortarless dry stone, mainly granite. The Great Enclosure, probably a royal residence, has walls about 36 feet (11 m) high and 820 feet (250 m) long. The Conical Tower is 30 feet (9 m) high. The site covers 2.8 square miles (7.22 km²) and holds eight soapstone Zimbabwe Birds.
It was abandoned in the 16th or 17th century. European antiquarians looted it from the 1890s to the 1920s, and Caton Thompson's 1929 work supported African origins. Reconstruction after 1980 caused further damage. UNESCO listed it in 1986.
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