The Khami Ruins: What Six Hundred Years of Stone Can Teach Us

Khami, the seat of the Torwa state from roughly 1450 to 1683, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that most Bulawayo schoolchildren have never visited. The dry-stone terraces, finer in places than those at Great Zimbabwe, climb a low granite hill twenty-two kilometres from the city.

The Torwa kingdom, which succeeded Great Zimbabwe and preceded the Rozvi, traded with Portuguese merchants on the coast, smelted gold, and farmed cattle across the Matabeleland plateau. The stone walls at Khami were built without mortar and have stood for six hundred years.

Khami remains under-resourced. The interpretive centre, when staffed, is a tin shed. There is no scheduled bus from town. Most visitors are foreign tourists who came to Zimbabwe for Victoria Falls and added Khami as an afterthought.

“It is one of the most important pre-colonial sites in Southern Africa,” said heritage scholar Dr Pathisa Nyathi. “And it is on our doorstep. That is both a tragedy and an opportunity.”