Ingombe Ilede

Ingombe Ilede stood near the meeting of the Lusitu and Zambezi rivers, at a point where routes from the copper-producing interior approached the Zimbabwean plateau. Its name, meaning “sleeping cow”, refers to the shape of a baobab tree. Salt and other goods passed through a community connected to both inland exchange and the distant Indian Ocean.

From the fifteenth century onwards, some of its dead were buried with remarkable wealth: copper ingots and bangles, gold ornaments, cloth, iron gongs and glass beads. The copper links the site to a long-established trade across southern central Africa, while the beads point to connections reaching India and the Middle East. These burials show how particular people acquired and displayed wealth in a changing network of trade and authority along the Zambezi.