Great Zimbabwe National Monument

Dry-stone walls of fitted granite, raised without mortar, sweep across a hilltop and valley in southern Zimbabwe — remains of the royal city the Shona built and inhabited from the 11th to the 15th century. Medieval legend cast it as the seat of the Queen of Sheba; archaeology instead reveals a Bantu trading power whose stone precincts spread over nearly 80 hectares and whose fame travelled far beyond Africa in the Middle Ages. The monument that gave the modern nation its name was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.