Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers [there is a] … fortress built of stones of marvellous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them … This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms high.
VICENTE PEGADO, captain at the Portuguese garrison of Sofala,
on seeing the ruins of Great Zimbabwe,
dzimba dza mabwe, House of Stone, 1531