Wood Long Necklace

Wood Long Necklace               

Wooden beads and elongated shapes.

Different colour wood stained and slightly varnished.

Approx length 48cm long

Handmade in Zimbabwe

The name "Zimbabwe" stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, an ancient city in the country's south-east whose remains are now a protected site.
Two different theories address the origin of the word.
Many sources hold that "Zimbabwe" derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones"

(dzimba = plural of imba, "house"; mabwe = plural of bwe, "stone")
The Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the modern-day province of Masvingo.

Although the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was formally established between the 12th and 14th century.
Archaeological excavations in the region suggest that state formation here was considerably more ancient.

Earlier thoughts suggested that in the early 11th century, people from the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in Southern Africa moved north into the Great Zimbabwe area.

Newer thinking and evidence shows the Great Zimbabwe site had been occupied as early as 600 CE and that the city and Kingdom were and evolution of the Gumanye and Gokomere cultures, some of which are still in existence today.

The rulers of Zimbabwe brought artistic and stonemasonry traditions from Mapungubwe.
The construction of elaborate stone buildings and walls reached its apex in the kingdom.
The economical institutions of mambo was also used in Zimbabwe.  The kingdom was composed of over 150 tributaries headquartered in their own minor zimbabwe's. They established rule over a wider area than the Mapungubwe, the Butua or the Mutapa.