Another one of my 'bucket list' destinations would be to visit the ruin city Great Zimbabwe. It was the capital of the kingdom of Zimbabwe during the late Iron age. The structures here are some of the oldest structures built in South Africa. Built using dry stone construction, some of the walls reach over 11 meters high. the city had at one point 18,000 occupants and was a large center for trade at the time.
The stone here is a granite which is really hard, and it's pretty amazing to see the effort that was made using basic tools to shape the blocks for the walls. The stonework here is beautifully coursed and is another great example on the argument between which is stronger, coursed stone work or random. In the picture above, you can see the chevron pattern at the top, which to me is a great example of how a small detail like that can elevate a coursed wall to another level of creative craftsmanship. There are some other great details throughout the ruins that are a fine example of the builders creative expression.
The craftsmanship of the structures here is absolutely top notch. Unfortunately the some of the structures have fallen into ruin and some where destroyed by 'Archaeologists' and 'Antiquarians' excavating and taking any remaining gold and artifacts they could find over the last century. There were attempts in the 80's to reconstruct some of the damage, but they ended up doing more damage in the end. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site so hopefully no one can go in and start tearing things apart anymore.
You can see in the photo below the importance of mass when building to such a large scale. All of the stone, including the center 'hearting' materials were methodically placed with structure in mind. There would be no way this beautiful stone work would be still around if they were just dumping gravel. The whole gravel issue is going to have to be its own post at some point soon.
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