Q.2

Hi again everyone its Paul Nicolle. My next subject of choice I’d like to talk about is religious buildings. Let us take a web journey to the Zimbabwe ruins. What I have picked up is that there are 100 to 200 miles of ancient ruins in the south central African nation of Zimbabwe. These ruins are from a great Shona people. Originally it was believed that Europeans built them but now they have proven otherwise. The Shona strongly protest its their heritage and people should respect that. I have recently found out that a lot of animal symbols such as crocodiles and eagles on the Zimbabwe flag are used often in African religions. Many archeologists believe that Great Zimbabwe formed and grew as a religious center for the great Shona god Mwari, and also a place where the deceased spirits of the ruling family flourished. These spirits were known as the mhondoro.

The Zimbabwe ruins are a great example of a religious centre. This is shown with the layout and shear detail and mass portrayed in the ruins pictured below. The way the city is set out is shown from a birds eye view and shows the unique design portraying the assumption of an axis mundi in the middle of the city. Axis mundi basically means a point in the middle of the city connecting the three realms spiritually.

One point I would like to make is that some historians and I believe that the Zimbabwe ruins is indeed a religious centre. This is because allot of the archeologists believe that the giant walls with the zig zag pattern indicates that they built the walls for there god and they did not get lazy on the architectural design.