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The legacy of vandalism and almost a century of continuous focus on drystone wall masonry is that little is known about metal craft production and consumption activities at Great Zimbabwe. Within these limitations, this paper attempts to explore the metallurgy of Great Zimbabwe, guided by the framework of archival, chronological and fieldwork‐ and laboratory‐based studies. The paper contends that residents of various components of Great Zimbabwe worked and processed their own metal, pointing to homestead‐level production and consumption. Metal from local and regional sources sustained long‐distance trade with the Indian Ocean rim.

We report chemical, petrographic and metallographic studies of copper ores and slags recovered during sporadic surface surveys and excavations over the past fifty years in the Phalaborwa and Murchison Range areas of the northern Lowveld of South Africa. The copper slags around Phalaborwa have unusual mineral assemblages, attributable to the unique geochemistry of the main ore body, the Phalaborwa Complex, where copper minerals were mined from a carbonatite composed of magnetite, calcite and apatite. Strongly reducing conditions had to be avoided to minimise contamination of the copper with iron and phosphorus. As the copper ores contain almost no silicates, silica/alumina flux was added to produce slag. The Precambrian zinc-copper ores of the Murchison Range were also smelted, but during smelting any zinc that was not volatilised was taken up by minerals in the slag, so brass was not produced.

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This article critically assesses how heritage has been appropriated in various contexts to create national, partisan, and corporate identities in Zimbabwe. Using iconography, we attempt to establish how various players have created visual identities based on iconic archaeological artefacts and places. We discern that archaeological evidence has played a vital role in the invention and re-invention of national identity and patriotic iconography. Archaeological evidence has influenced the branding of corporate bodies, including universities, which are the major focus of this paper. Visual manifestations of the ancient Zimbabwe Culture ( madzimbahwe), especially Great Zimbabwe, dominate the branding process. The Zimbabwe bird, Conical Tower, and motifs associated with the drystone built heritage form the key visual elements in the country’s branding enterprise. We advance the argument that the period associated with madzimbahwe has been projected as the only ‘Golden Age’ of ancient Zimbabwe. Consequently, other heritages, diverse histories, and past cultural achievements have been marginalised.