Great Zimbabwe

Shadreck Chirikure is a Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Archaeological Materials Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town and British Academy Global Professor, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

‘Shadreck Chirikure deploys decolonial thought and indeed decolonial theory as he delves into indigenous African ideation to decolonize archaeology. What is delivered is a refreshing and indeed original re-reading of Great Zimbabwe and its location in world archaeology. This is indeed a timely and essential book coming out at a moment of insurgent and resurgent planetary decolonization.’ Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor and Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South, University of Bayreuth, Germany

• Part I: Learning, relearning, and unlearning Great Zimbabwe1: Unveiling a ‘confiscated’ past2: Background to ‘Shona concepts’ and the Great Zimbabwe nyika (territory) 3: Biography of Great Zimbabwe: late 18th to 21st centuries4: Chronology of Great Zimbabwe – relative, absolute, and integratedPart II: Objects, their context, and meaning5: Misha nedzimba: on households and homesteads6: Hari, or pottery7: Crafts, science, technology, and innovation8: Exotics: fame, prestige, and valuePart III: Native cosmologies and ways of knowing9: Rise and decline: resilience of Great Zimbabwe10: Urbanism and statehood11: ‘Reclaimed’ Great Zimbabwe in a wider context: from Egyptian pyramids to decolonised global pasts