Southern Africa's first kingdom — where the golden rhino was buried and the Zimbabwe plateau civilisation began
Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site lies in the Limpopo Province at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers, at the point where South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe meet. It preserves the capital and sacred hill of the Mapungubwe state (1000–1290 CE) — the first complex society in southern Africa, predecessor to the Great Zimbabwe kingdom, and the civilisation that produced the iconic Golden Rhino of Mapungubwe (a small golden rhino figurine hammered from thin gold sheet over a wooden core, now in the Mapungubwe Collection at the University of Pretoria). The hilltop settl…
Mapungubwe was occupied from around 900 CE and became the most powerful state in southern Africa between 1075 and 1220 CE, controlling the gold trade between the Zimbabwe Plateau and the Indian Ocean coast. The kingdom collapsed around 1290 CE, likely due to climate change (a cold, dry period made the Limpopo floodplain unsuitable for agriculture), and was succeeded by the Zimbabwe state centred on Great Zimbabwe. The site was unknown to European scholars until 1932, when local farmer Jerry van Graan and archaeologist from the University of Pretoria excavated the royal burial sites and discov…