# Karl Mauch at Great Zimbabwe (1871)

URL: https://allhistories.com/zimbabwe/timeline/1871-karl-mauch-at-great-zimbabwe
Location: Great Zimbabwe, Masvingo, Zimbabwe
Themes: main-event

Rumours of great stone ruins in the interior had circulated among Europeans since the Portuguese accounts of the sixteenth century. The hunter Adam Renders had visited the ruins in 1867, and Karl Mauch, already famous for his gold reports, set out to find them. Guided by Renders, Mauch reached Great Zimbabwe on 5 September 1871 and spent several months there, making sketches and notes on the Hill Complex and the Great Enclosure. Influenced by the biblical and Portuguese legends of Ophir, he concluded that the buildings were a copy of King Solomon's Temple and the palace of the Queen of Sheba, and that a beam of wood from the site was cedar from Lebanon. He published these claims in Germany, where they were widely reported. Mauch's visit made Great Zimbabwe known in Europe but also launched the myth that it had been built by foreign peoples rather than Africans. This idea was eagerly adopted by later colonial writers and settlers and was used to justify colonial rule, until archaeologists such as David Randall-MacIver (1905) and Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1929) proved its African origins. At this point in the timeline (5 September 1871), the King of the Northern Ndebele (Mthwakazi) was Lobengula (1870 – January 1894); the Mwenemutapa (ruler of the Mutapa state) was Kandeya II (1867 – c. 1876).

## Why it matters
Mauch's visit publicised Great Zimbabwe in Europe and began the colonial myth of its foreign origins.

Ruler at the Time: [Lobengula](https://allhistories.com/zimbabwe/rulers/lobengula)

Mwenemutapa (ruler of the Mutapa state): Kandeya II

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Karl Mauch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Mauch)
- [Wikipedia — Great Zimbabwe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe)
- [UNESCO World Heritage — Great Zimbabwe National Monument](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364)
- [Wikipedia — The Ndebele Kingdom (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mthwakazi)