Chedzurgwe

Chedzurgwe was a large settlement in the copper country of the Urungwe plateau. Its inhabitants made finely decorated pottery, including shallow bowls and delicate beakers, and used copper cast into distinctive cross-shaped ingots. Similar pottery and ingots have been found at Ingombe Ilede beside the Zambezi River, linking the plateau community with a wider network of exchange.

The settlement was occupied during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when copper moved across southern central Africa as both a useful metal and a highly valued object. Local traditions remember the VaMbara as skilled metalworkers who traded copper with the Mutapa state. The ingots found at Chedzurgwe testify to a craft whose products travelled far beyond the hill on which its people lived.