Domboshaba

Domboshaba was a stone-walled centre in Kalanga country, built on and below a hill. Carefully laid blocks form enclosures on the summit and a larger compound on the lower slope. Nearby, a deep natural well in Mantenge hill held water in the rock. The settlement belonged to the wider tradition of stone building shared with Great Zimbabwe and other centres of the southern African plateau.

Occupied towards the end of the Great Zimbabwe period, Domboshaba remained a regional centre in the later Khami phase. A crescent-shaped wall and numerous small stone cairns on the hillside have been compared with places used for initiation at Great Zimbabwe, suggesting that ceremonies as well as chiefly life may have formed part of its history.