A continuing debate concerning shifting residences for rulers at the 13th-16th century AD African Iron Age capital of Great Zimbabwe makes for interesting reading today.
The Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe; photo by C.T. Snow
In an Antiquity article in 2008, archaeologists Chirikure and Pikirayi argued that there is evidence for the current pattern of shifting residences for the rulers, that, like the Shona descendants of Great Zimbabwe, when a new ruler took power, they moved residence. Huffman (in Azania in 2010) argues differently, that the shifting residential pattern is an artifact from Portuguese colonization, and that all (or most) rulers lived at the Great Enclosure.
Read more about the debate here:
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