AP® Art History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/art-history/units/6/6-3)
Unit 6 · Topic 6.3
6.3 Theories and Interpretations of African Art
Great Zimbabwe shows how interpretations of African art can be shaped by bias and corrected by evidence. Colonial writers claimed outsiders must have built it, but archaeology showed it was the capital of a wealthy African state built by ancestors of the Shona.
Key terms
- Great Zimbabwe
- Shona peoples
- coursed granite
- dry-stone (mortarless) masonry
- colonial bias
Conical tower and circular wall of Great Zimbabwe
Conical tower and circular wall of Great Zimbabwe (Shona peoples, southeastern Zimbabwe; c. 1000–1400 CE; coursed granite blocks). Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a powerful state, home to perhaps 10,000 or more people at its peak. Its rulers grew rich from cattle and from trade in gold and ivory, sent to the Swahili coast towns of the Indian Ocean. Archaeologists found Chinese porcelain, Persian pottery and glass beads there, proof of trade links reaching across the Indian Ocean.
The site has a hilltop complex, probably the oldest royal and ritual center, and in the valley below the Great Enclosure. The Great Enclosure's outer wall runs about 250 meters around and stands up to about 11 meters high. Its builders split local granite into blocks and laid them in even horizontal rows, or courses, without mortar. Part of the top of the wall has a zigzag (chevron) pattern. Inside stands a solid conical tower about 9 meters (30 feet) tall, with no door or inner room.
The name Zimbabwe is usually traced to a Shona phrase meaning "houses of stone." When the country won independence in 1980, it took its name from the site, and a carved soapstone bird from Great Zimbabwe appears on its flag.
How interpretations changed
When European explorers reached the ruins in the late 1800s, many refused to believe Africans could have built them. The German explorer Karl Mauch claimed in 1871 that they were linked to the Queen of Sheba, and others credited Phoenicians or Arabs. These ideas served colonialism: if Africans had no great past, colonizers could claim to bring "civilization." Early treasure hunters dug through the site and destroyed evidence.
Archaeologists tested the claims. In 1905, David Randall-MacIver found that the objects at the site were African, and in 1929 Gertrude Caton-Thompson confirmed it. Later radiocarbon dating confirmed that the site grew over several centuries before about 1450, long before Europeans arrived. Even so, in the 1960s and 1970s Rhodesia's white-minority government pressured archaeologists and guidebooks to stay vague about who built it.
The tower's meaning is still debated. Its shape resembles a Shona grain bin, so some scholars read it as a symbol of a ruler's role in storing and sharing food. Others connect it to royal authority or ritual. No written records survive, so these remain interpretations based on the form of the tower and on later Shona customs.
Who gets to explain African art?
Great Zimbabwe is an extreme case of a wider problem. Outsiders who collected African art often grouped objects by "tribe" and treated them as anonymous. Missing names and dates in museum records usually reflect how the objects were collected, not a lack of interest in artists. Olowe of Ise, for example, was famous by name in his own time.
For centuries, much of what the world believed about Africa came from non-Africans, as though Africa's history arrived from outside. New evidence keeps changing the story: archaeology, oral histories, radiocarbon dating, and research by African scholars. Even when a work's original meaning is uncertain, you can still analyze its design and explain how different interpretations use the evidence.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Describe an interpretation and the evidence behind it
Describe one interpretation of the Conical tower and circular wall of Great Zimbabwe, and explain how evidence has shaped interpretations of the site.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: State one interpretation clearly, with who held it or what it claims.
- Step 2: Name the kind of evidence (archaeology, radiocarbon dates, trade goods, comparison with Shona customs).
- Step 3: Explain how that evidence supports or overturns the interpretation.
Answer: Model answer: In the late 1800s, European writers such as Karl Mauch claimed that outsiders, perhaps linked to the Queen of Sheba, built Great Zimbabwe, because they assumed Africans could not have built monumental stone architecture. Excavations by Randall-MacIver in 1905 and Caton-Thompson in 1929 overturned this view: the pottery, tools and other finds were African, and later radiocarbon dates showed the site grew over centuries before about 1450, so the site is now understood as the capital of a Shona-ancestral state that grew wealthy from the gold and ivory trade.
Common mistakes
- Repeating the colonial myth as a real debate. The evidence is clear that ancestors of the Shona built Great Zimbabwe; the myth is important only as an example of bias.
- Saying the conical tower was a lookout or a house. It is solid, with no door or interior, and its purpose is still debated.
- Forgetting the trade context. Imported porcelain and glass beads show that Great Zimbabwe was connected to Indian Ocean trade.
On the exam
- Questions on theories and interpretations reward you for naming a specific interpretation and the evidence or bias behind it. Great Zimbabwe is a clear, strong example.
- Learn the identifiers exactly: Shona peoples, c. 1000–1400 CE, coursed granite blocks.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself: 6.3 Theories and Interpretations of African Art
4 questions on 6.3 Theories and Interpretations of African Art. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Conical tower and circular wall of Great Zimbabwe. Shona peoples (Southeastern Zimbabwe). c. 1000–1400 CE. Coursed granite blocks.
A tall, solid cone of granite blocks, about 30 feet (9 meters) high, stands inside a huge curving outer wall built of the same stone. The blocks are laid in even horizontal courses without mortar, and a band of chevron (zigzag) pattern runs along the top of part of the outer wall.
Identifiers from the AP Art History CED's list of required works; description written for this practice set
Early twentieth-century claims that Great Zimbabwe was built by outsiders were overturned mainly by
Chinese porcelain, Persian pottery and imported glass beads excavated at Great Zimbabwe are evidence that
The scale and careful masonry of the enclosure walls most likely served to
Great Mosque of Djenné. Mali. Founded c. 1200 CE; rebuilt 1906–1907 CE. Adobe.
A huge building of sun-dried mud brick covered in smooth mud plaster, on a raised platform. Three tall towers rise from the main facade, and bundles of palm-wood sticks (toron) stick out of the walls in rows.
Identifiers from the AP Art History CED's list of required works; description written for this practice set
Which statement about the 1906–1907 rebuilding of the mosque is most accurate?
0 of 4 answered