TY - JOUR
T1 - Soapstone birds in soapstone nests
T2 - ethnohistorical interpretation of the Zimbabwe birds based on sixteenth- to nineteenth-century Portuguese documents
AU - Roufe, Gai
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2016/4/2
Y1 - 2016/4/2
N2 - ABSTRACT: In recent years, southern African archaeological and historical studies have been experiencing a fruitful process of re-engagement, following decades in which the two disciplines appeared to be moving further and further apart. This paper aims to contribute to and reignite one of the fiercest and most fascinating debates conducted between historians and archaeologists of southern Africa in the last four decades concerning the meaning and functions of Great Zimbabwe. In the spirit of recent interdisciplinary endeavours, it proposes a new hypothesis about the cultural meaning and functions of the most notable artefacts found at Great Zimbabwe, the soapstone birds, by consulting a sizable but under-used corpus of written historical sources, namely published and archival Portuguese documents concerning the political and religious systems of the Mocaranga from the beginning of the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.
AB - ABSTRACT: In recent years, southern African archaeological and historical studies have been experiencing a fruitful process of re-engagement, following decades in which the two disciplines appeared to be moving further and further apart. This paper aims to contribute to and reignite one of the fiercest and most fascinating debates conducted between historians and archaeologists of southern Africa in the last four decades concerning the meaning and functions of Great Zimbabwe. In the spirit of recent interdisciplinary endeavours, it proposes a new hypothesis about the cultural meaning and functions of the most notable artefacts found at Great Zimbabwe, the soapstone birds, by consulting a sizable but under-used corpus of written historical sources, namely published and archival Portuguese documents concerning the political and religious systems of the Mocaranga from the beginning of the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.
KW - Great Zimbabwe
KW - Mocaranga
KW - Monomotapa
KW - soapstone birds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84975469093&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/0067270X.2016.1173307
DO - 10.1080/0067270X.2016.1173307
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84975469093
SN - 0067-270X
VL - 51
SP - 178
EP - 196
JO - Azania
JF - Azania
IS - 2
ER -