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Andrew Moore from Johannesburg, South Africa · CC BY-SA 2.0
Polity Africa

Great Zimbabwe

Attested 1000 CE – 1400 CE

Ruins of an ancient/medieval city in southeast Zimbabwe

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Wikipedia

The opening of the article, and a way into the rest of it without leaving the site.

Great Zimbabwe on Wikipedia.

Read the article Open on Wikipedia ↗

How these dates were made

Why this bar's edges are floors, not a founding and a fall.

The atlas draws the world at 6 moments in time, not continuously. This bar runs from the first snapshot in which Great Zimbabwe appears to the last, so both edges are floors — the earliest and latest years it is attested, not a founding and a dissolution.

1000 CE 6 snapshots 1400 CE
1000 CE1100 CE1200 CE1279 CE1300 CE1400 CE

Elsewhere in Africa at the time

Records whose own span overlaps this one, found by the same test the canvas draws with. The bar under each card is where it sits inside this one.

See the whole view

Landmark · Africa

Volubilis

300 BCE – 1200 CE

Polity · Africa

Empire of Ghana

100 CE – 1200 CE

Conflict · Africa

Ghana–Almoravid Conflict

1054 CE – 1083 CE

Trade route · Africa

East African Coastal Trade

900 CE – 1505 CE

Landmark · Africa

Great Zimbabwe

1100 CE – still standing

Polity · Africa

Fatimid Caliphate

909 CE – 1200 CE

Conflict · Africa

Great Zimbabwe & Mutapa Wars

1100 CE – 1629 CE

Landmark · Africa

Timbuktu

1100 CE – still standing

Dated moments inside this span

Events the timeline places between 1000 CE and 1400 CE.

1075 CE Mapungubwe 1100 CE Kanem-Bornu Wars 1100 CE Great Zimbabwe & Mutapa Wars 1100 CE Great Zimbabwe 1100 CE Timbuktu 1100 CE Gedi Ruins

And in the rest of the world

Records running through the same years, on the other side of the map.

Lighthouse of Alexandria Landmark · Middle East 280 BCE – 1323 CE Ottoman Empire Polity · Europe 1299 CE – 1922 CE Polynesian Eastward Voyaging Trade route · Americas 700 CE – 1300 CE Byzantine–Arab Wars Conflict · Europe 629 CE – 1180 CE Hai Gaon Figure · Babylonia (modern Iraq) 939 CE – 1038 CE Angkor Wat Landmark · East Asia 1113 CE – still standing
Image credits5 pictures from Wikimedia Commons
  • Great ZimbabweAndrew Moore from Johannesburg, South Africa · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • VolubilisSubhros · CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Ghana EmpireLuxo · CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Fatimid CaliphateNourerrahmane (using file uploaded by Omar-toons as template) · CC BY-SA 4.0
  • TimbuktuFlickr user: Emilio Labrador Santiago de Chile https://www.flickr.com/people/3059349393/ · CC BY 2.0