Mapungubwe is situated near the small town of Pontdrif, approximately an hour’s drive from Messina. The Mapungubwe industrial complex dates back to the Late Iron Age – Ad 1000. People then were familiar with agriculture and kept cattle. They made working tools and other objects from iron. The mining industry was also being discovered and the trade industry flourished.

Mapungubwe is known for the gold objects being found in graves. These objects included wooden carvings covered in gold such as a golden staff, a bowl, the famous gold rhinoceros, fragments of other golden objects and a large quantity of golden beads. These golden objects were all manufactured on a traditional method. Large quantities of imported glass beads and fragments of Chinese porcelain shows us that there was a settled trading network that covered a big area. However, trade in ivory did not play such an important role as it did in other Late Iron Age settlements. The people of Mapungubwe had their own distinctive ceramic-style. More than 600 artefacts – including objects made of bone, arrow points and needles – were found at Mapungubwe. At about AD 1200 Mapungubwe was deserted. It is suspected that the expanding Great Zimbabwe complex was the main reason for this.

Join one of Africa’s top archaeologists on an excursion to unravel the secrets of two of the most mysterious places in the world: Thulamela and Mapungubwe, where a flourishing trade of gold existed at the time.