Photographs 1997 by the author taken when he was Visting Professor at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. In August 1997 the author traveled to Zimbabwe to help Gunnar Listøl and other members of the Department of New Media, University of Oslo, Norway, set of a computer lab for undergraduate teaching and independent study at the University. The oil-rich Norwegian government has long had a special relationship with the University of Zimbabwe, having established a graduate exchange program. One evening we had a dinner cruise along the banks of the Zambezi River, where we caught sight of elephants.
On the road south
Great Zimbabwe — the abandoned ancient walled enclave that gave its name to the country, which the English called Rhodesia. Racist Europeans long insisted Africans couldn't have constructed such a structure, but an English woman archeologist working after WWI proved that it was indigenous peoples, not the lost tribes of Israel or some other mythic group, built what was probably just the royal castle, and ordinary people lived in buildings outside and around it. [This photo has appeared in textbooks published in various European languages.]
George set out to see Great Zimbabwe by himself, making the roundtrip in a modern taxi-van, which stopped at this lovely restaurant decked out in late-Victorian colonial style.
Great Zimbabwe
Left: Another visitor took this picture of your webmaster standing in front of what archeologists believe is a symbolic granary — symbolic because the structure not a hollow stone silo but solid. Right: Rocks near Great Zimbabwe.
Last modified 15 February 2016