Luanze

Luanze was a trading fair on the eastern edge of the Makaha goldfields, within the lands of the Mutapa. Traders from the Zambezi valley brought goods inland to exchange for gold, working with African intermediaries known as vashambadzi. Earth banks enclosed their stores and dwellings, while pole-and-clay houses stood outside.

Established in the 1580s, the fair acquired a church served by a Dominican friar. A Portuguese account of 1634 describes its palisade of stakes filled with earth, and a captain's residence within the enclosure. Glass beads and Chinese glazed ceramics found at Luanze show the reach of the trading network. During the wars of the late seventeenth century the Portuguese abandoned their fairs in the region; Luanze may already have lost ground to markets closer to other goldfields.