Mapungubwe Hill, capital of the kingdom of Mapungubwe

The separation of the ruler and the elite on the hilltop from the commoners below is seen as an early form of sacred kingship in southern Africa: the hill, long a rain-making site, became the only one, with the ruler’s family as ritual specialists. By about 1250 the capital and the settlements around the hill had some 5,000 inhabitants. Gold and ivory went down to the coast, and glass beads from India and South-East Asia, used as currency, came inland; the Chinese celadon found at the palace was probably a gift in return for the right to trade.

In the 1930s a cemetery of 23 graves was excavated near the palace (the first gold finds were made in 1932–1933; the University of Pretoria then took over the excavations). Three burials stood out: one held objects of wood covered with thin gold foil, among them a rhinoceros small enough to stand in the palm of a hand; another contained more than a hundred gold bangles, 12,000 gold beads and 26,000 glass beads. The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

Around 1300 the hill was abandoned. The cause is unknown: the idea that the onset of the Little Ice Age ruined the kingdom has been rejected, and some scholars point to a northward shift of the trade routes, towards Great Zimbabwe, which became the leading centre of the interior.