Who built Great Zimbabwe? And why? - Breeanna Elliott 

This is honestly one of the best channels on RU-vid. Free access to education like this is just wonderful.

I wish we learned more about african history and archtecture, because I really wish I knew about this earlier!

I'm from Zimbabwe... So surprised this channel mentioned us! 💕🙌🏽

I as a Zimbabwean am extremely proud of our culture and heritage.

-Who built Great Zimbabwe? -Zimbabweans -Why? -To live

The level of absurdity some went to discredit the indigenous Africans who built Great Zimbabwe. They even claimed it was built by ancient Greeks wtf?

People of Zimbabwe: Our people made this Colonials: UNREALISTIC

I'm Zimbabwean and it's beautiful to see my history being told. Sadly a lot of African history was lost making it even more important to preserve what we do know. I also really liked the use of mbira music in the background that made the video even more authentic.

Amazing! I would definitely recommend the Aksum civilization next. Honestly there're so many interesting things about ancient/medieval African societies!

There are a lot of similar but smaller ruins in Zimbabwe, for example the Khami and Ziwa Ruins. The stone ruins from the ancient Kingdom extend to Botswana, Northen part of South Africa and Southern Angola.

Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans, not Europeans. I don't know why it's a mystery because, across Zimbabwe, there are other stone walls that were built by the indigenous people. Khami, Naletale etc.

YAY! I'm not from Zimbabwe, I'm from Botswana. I'm happy there's a video about one country from Africa.

This was great . We need more videos about African history!

More videos about African history, please! ❤️❤️

I took a class on Africa. learned every country and most stuff. But so much you can learn in 4 months. this is neat. You can make entire classes. It would be nice, a lot of people would enjoy it. instead of a crash course I took in college. My professor was from there. Had a lot of great stories

As a Zimbabwean I can say that this is surprisingly accurate

Can't wait for Geography Now to make the Zimbabwe episode!

Africa has so many untold stories around ancient monuments and ancient cultures...really wish archeologists would spend more time in Africa looking for lost and forgotten civilizations...

The intro - "Great Zimbabwe, a large settlement, second only to the Pyramids of Egypt". This implies only 2 large settlements across the continent when there were many more from Axum (which maintained a continuous Christian civilisation older than most in the West) to Mali (which had more gold reserves than any other kingdom in that era in the world) and others much older. Consider the Nubian pyramids and cities. Everyone knows about Egypt but most don't know that there are more Nubian pyramids than Egyptian pyramids and they were built before Ancient Greece (forget the Roman Empire) even existed. Ancient Greece started around 800BC, Nubia started around 2500BC. Even as Nubia’s influence was declining and Rome was ascending, Rome under Emperor Augustus failed to subjugate Queen/Kandake (Candace) Amanirenas. Back to Great Zimbabwe - I do love the story. It is one of many great civilisations and histories of Africa that has been hidden and forgotten especially in the past 200 years of colonialism. However, this history is being revived. I hope more excavation work can be carried out to demonstrate how vast and advanced Great Zimbwabwe was and its link to another forgotten civilisation further south in Mapungubwe and Manyikeni in the east.

Why have I never heard about the Great Zimbabwe? Not even a slightiest mention in my whole life.

A great meme I saw said this: 'Just because white people couldn't do it doesn't mean it was aliens' It was about the Pyramids, but I feel like it applies to this, too

Discrediting Africans for making a great city on African land is wild…

Africa of course has to have a great history, I mean, it's the continent that inspired our very existence... Why don't we document more of their history??

Ted Ed you have no idea how happy I get when I see a video from your channel in my subscription box. You really make learning different topics so interesting. Thank you for the great work!!

I can't believe I never heard of this city before

Awesome! My world history students will love this. Thank you!

As a Zimbabwean who grew up in this town 😁I feel so happy and proud!

The Aztec and the Incas built stone Cities too. Why is it so hard to believe that Africans did the same

I'm surprised that Great Zimbabwe wasn't burned to the ground by Colonialists, as most African cities were in the past. Probably just because it'd been abandoned.

Im so happy you did a video on Zimbabwe. my parents are from Zimbabwe and world history class seemed to just skip over the country itself. nice to set the records straight.

I love that they referred to the colonists as racist

Is anyone else trying to read the comments, but there's so many confusing arguments exploding?

What if the city is underground and Black Panther is there ruling them

Thank you for using mbira music...

I had no idea that the city of Great Zimbabwe existed I only knew Zimbabwe existing.

zim represent thank u ted ed for well thought out research ...and the mbira playing in the background was an amazing touch from a proud Zimbabwean

I never knew of this! Thank you, Ted Ed!

I would have never guessed that Europeans would have discredited such as city. They never did terrible things during the scramble for Africa!

Very fascinating! I think we'd all love more videos on African history! Never really knew any of this.

Awesome video, very fair and honest representation of history, makes me proud to be Zimbabweans.

I'm Zimbabwean!

I was fortunate enough to have lived in Harare, Zimbabwe for about 4 years way before the economy collapsed! A beautiful country ruined by corrupt government policies! How unfortunate 🙁

i used to live 15km away from the great zimbabwe ruins, it is truly a marvel to watch and there are numerous ruins like these in zim abeit at a smaller scale which were built by break away states like the mutapa and rozvi state

This was great! Please do more videos on ancient Africa!

The beatiful mbira soundtrack makes this absolutely perfect , thank you.

What an incredibly interesting story I always love learning about amazing things people accomplished in the past especially when I have never heard of it before great stuff guys👍🏻

The animation is so beautiful.

I’m Mexican, I love the history of Zimbabwe. Thanks to my professor at University of California, Santa Bárbara

200 racists got triggered that natives build the amazing city

I'm Zimbabwean and this video is awesome!😄

I can't believe I've never heard of this!!

When someone tells you that a civilization needs to be alphabetized in order to be considered literate, remember them the Iliad has been orally passed down for centuries! ;-)

It's always such a thrill to watch the videos on historic achievements not usually talked about. Specially political and cultural ones from Africa and Latin America!

What great ingenuity from the peoples of Africa. I can understand why they are so proud of it!

A beautiful country, I hope more people will see it one day.

Your videos are a treat to both the mind and the senses

1:46 SAID THE SWAHILI ON THE SWAHILI COAST

Zimbabweans built great zimbabwe using Vibration and Sound technology. It wasn't built by hands but by sound technology and vibration big difference

I love learning this

In Civilization 6, constructing Great Zimbabwe grants extra gold to your trade routes. I ended up with newly twice the income of the next richest empire and rolled the competition.

without Ted ed, I would have gone the grave without ever knowing this

Thanks Ted-Ed for this! I'm glad that part of my country's history is being shared with the world! :)

Seriously though, Europe is speckled all over with just the most amazing architecture, and all sorts of developments. The best sub-Saharan Africa before contact can boast is a little walled town.

Lol Zimbabweans are actually good at building so this shouldn’t even be a debate it’s in their blood...

You guys should do the Indus Valley Civilisation.

I never even heard of this until now!

I'm zimbabwean 100% and this is a lovely video. So nice to know that we mean something deep to Africa and historical factors :)

They refused to believe that non-white peoples were capable to build magnificent building and to have advanced civilization. "Caton Thompson used ceramics, which were similar to what modern villagers were using, and structures like terrace walls to determine who built the structures from the site. Working with Kathleen Kenyon, Caton Thompson's excavations led her to the unequivocal view that Zimbabwe was the product of a "native civilisation". The assertion attracted considerable negative press attention and was received negatively by many within the archaeological community. Caton Thompson claimed to keep hostile letters from local experts in a file marked "insane". " From Wikipedia

Zimbabwe is a great nation filled with kind hearted people and strive to improve.

I'm from Zimbambwe, love the mbira tunes in the background. I was born in Masvingo where the great Zimbambwe is

Bruh, the Queen of Sheba was from Ethiopia, if they read the bible they would know that

“Triggered by overuse” *You see someone that you know and they ask you how soil is, you just have to say that the soil’s fine when the soil’s not really fine*

What's the reasoning behind Europeans hating on Africans so hard?

I did not even knew that this existed. Great video!

Mapenzi evanhu tisu takavaka apa

It’s alway everybody but the Africans isn’t it.

I went to Rhodesia in the 60's to see the Ruins of Zimbabwe. In 2000 i went to Zimbabwe and saw the Ruins of Rhodesia.

These were no cities , Massive villages . Portuguese have a role in the creation of this during there times of trade ..Strong evidence shows the time line directly with trade with the Portuguese , same as Benin, During the Portuguese trades ...

If I could time travel Great Zimbabwe would be my first destination for sure

Wow! They actual stacked some rocks!! Truely amazing and so much better than the usual mud and sticks.

People are saying that this stone structure isnt impressive yet consoder the Stonehenge cool. Sure is just some stone walls but these were massive stone walls, and rhey built with without the use of the wheel soooo

We call came out of Africa at some ancient point in time. It's our duty to learn about its ancient and modern history

This is really cool to learn about, and put into perspective! Great Zimbabwe took 500 years to build circular walls of stacked stones! That really is astonishing how much time and effort was put into constructing this giant pile of rocks. The beauty is the simplicity. During the same time period the Alcázar of Segovia was built in less than 30 years, with functional gatehouses, conical towers, a spired keep reaching towards the heavens on a cliff edge, internal sewage systems, crop rotation farming, and an incredible feat of engineering that is still standing to this day almost 1,000 years later. What a enlightening and educating video, thank you TED! 🤓🧠📖

i am not suprised we rarely hear about ancient african cities. i mean honestly we got hundreds of ruins complexer and bigger than great zimbabwe all over europe, Asia and South America.besides that we also got way more ancient cities that are still cities to this day than africa does. And on top of that africa, with the exception north africa and the horn of africa, has barerly any written history, written by natives, due to a lack of written languages.

Am recommending this channel to my kids.

18,000 people? Small town I’d say.

"Racist colonial officials" The word racist has experienced such an inflation, in my books, it carries no weight whatsoever. Especially here it's completely unnecessary to use the word. Who on Earth wasn't racist before globalization started to take over in the 20th century?

You mean Rhodesia mate?

I wish they one day make a movie about this place😍

the coolest place nobody ever talks about :(. Thanks TED-ED, moar plz!

0:42 so basically this is the city where attack on titan took place

Proud to be a Zimbabwe

Who built Great Zimbabwe? *The People who lived there* Why? *To live there*

2:25 For those curious, Kilwa Kisiwani is a site along the coast of modern-day Tanzania

I love all your new stories on Africa, can you make similar video's on Latin America?

attack on titan??

I believe Zimbabweans are way too smart people...and such stone structures are scattered through out Zimbabwe like Khami Ruins, Dhlodhlo ruins and so on, proving that it was the locals who built those structures...the civilization of Zimbabwe was disturbed and polluted by colonialism..l believe Zimbabweans would have discovered electricity on their own if they had not been colonised....

Yes and Africans built ancient Egypt.

May Zimbabwe and other African nations thrive in path of prosperity and happiness. May the natives rule the land and culture forever

This was really interesting. Thanks for covering all these diverse topics