MUCH of Zimbabwe’s written history begins in the Mwene waMutapa period in the 1500s.
This is largely owed to the coming of the Portuguese in the region in that period.
However, there is Zimbabwean history which was written in early books that predate the Mutapa period coupled with oral history which has miraculously survived to the modern day.
The earliest written history of the region south of the Sahara is in the biblical book of Genesis.
Southern Africa at that time was called the land of Havilah which was located around the first river of Eden called Pishon.
The second river of Eden was the Nile, which cut across the whole land of Cush comprising Ethiopia and Egypt.
The remaining two rivers are the Euphrates and Tigris which lead to Syria and Iraq.
The place where Adam or mankind originated was in-between the first and second river, which is beyond the Great Lakes Region around Uganda and Ethiopia.
Adam and Eve were settled in modern-day southern Africa after they were chased away from the centre of the garden.
This was depicted in the ancient world maps that showed the world right side up, with southern Africa at the top and Europe, Russia and Alaska at the very bottom. On these maps, illustrations of the first man and woman were drawn in the region of southern Africa because at that time, it was common knowledge that it was the earliest settlement of the human family until the time of Noah and the flood.
It was in southern Africa that Noah collected all the animals, crops and technology that he would re-introduce to his children on Mount Ararat which is around the Himalayas, where they touched ground, and that is around Nepal and Tibet.
This explains the migration of lions from Africa to Asia eventually becoming tigers and also the Asian elephant which came from the loins of the African elephant.
Millet and cannabis were also introduced to Asia this same way, along with writing, drums and other things that can now be found on the two distant continents.
Even the Mongol (C) man’s paternal genetics betray him as a direct descendant of the Pygmy (B) man of Africa and this explains the short stature of the indigenous Asian.
To this day, southern Africa is known for its gold which is a fact written in the Bible.
It is written: “And there is plenty gold and bdellium and the gold of that land is good.”
This region would later be identified as Ophir and has been confirmed to be present-day Zimbabwe where good and plenty gold can still be found along with many other minerals.
The human family comprising black Shemites and Hamites and excluding the Japhetites who went east, migrated west from Mount Ararat to Shinar in Iraq.
From Iraq, the human family, which at this point shared a common language and culture, split up by genealogies and scattered to different parts of the world.
Hamites were allocated most of Africa and India. The Shemites were allocated North Africa, Iberia (Spain), the lands around the Mediterranean Sea and Arabia.
Nimrod, the son of Cush, founded the first cities in Syria and Iraq.
The ones that entered Africa found it thinly populated by the Khoisan and Pygmy blacks who were living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in southern, central and east Africa.
The Negro-Bantu, as he is referred to today, came from the community in Saharan Africa around Egypt.
They came to southern Africa after settling in the Great Lakes Region for some time.
A related group also entered west Africa from the Sahara.
Over-population in the Great Lakes Region led some of these groups to seek out new land. With them came extensive trade, livestock rearing, mining, iron technology and so on.
This group of ancient Egyptians called ‘Negro Bantu’ did not opt to settle in the forests of Congo because the weather was not suitable for crops they brought from the Sahara region which would continue to dry.
They were physically taller and stouter than the Khoisan and Pygmy people and thus they were referred to as the giant people.
The community which entered in Zimbabwe had a common root of language called Kalanga.
They also used totems and this made them peculiar to pre-existent groups like the Tonga and so on.
Inter-marriage between these groups and the ones already there would lead to the diverse phenotypes and dialects that now exist among Africans of today.
Other early historical information about the region of southern Africa, particularly Ophir which is modern-day Zimbabwe, can be found in the Ethiopian book of Israelite kings called the Kebra Nagast.
The same account is written in the biblical books of Chronicles and Kings.
According to the Kebra Nagast, the rulers of southern Arabia (Saba) were Hamites; known as Sabaeans.
Their kingdom comprised the whole of Africa, apart from Egypt, Arabia (Sheba) and parts of India.
During the time of King Solomon of Israel, around 1000 BCE, this large Kemetic Kingdom, which even stretched to the continents now known as the Americas, was ruled by a certain Queen Makeda.
The kingdom was traditionally ruled by virgin women and was called Candace or Hendake. Queen Makeda was a Sabaean though she ruled from Debra Makeda (Axum) in Ethiopia.
The Sabaeans were located in a very strategic place between Africa and India and this made them efficient traders.
The name Sheba or Saba is actually derived from ‘Shava’ which means ‘trade’. Among the goods they traded to distant places, like Tyre, was gold from Ophir, along with livestock, hardwood, spices and herbs.
Hiram from Tyre was sent by Solomon, along with some Israelites to go to Ophir by ship once every three years to bring almug wood, gold, ivory, apes and silver.
The wood of Zimbabwe was used to build the steps of the temple of Jerusalem and Zimbabwean gold was used to make the gold ornaments of the temple.
The Sabaeans and particularly a merchant called Tamrin, who traded goods from Saba to Jerusalem, brought word to Queen Makeda of the industrious Israelite community and their mighty king.
This led the Queen of Sheba to visit King Solomon.
They eventually conceived a male child called Ebna la Hakim (Menyelek) who succeeded his mother as king at the age of 23 after visiting Solomon and being educated in Israel.
From his time on, the kingdom was ruled by the male descendants of Ebna la Hakim and the inhabitants of those lands began worshipping the One God in the manner of the Hebrew Israelites and conforming to their laws.
In the Kebra Nagast, the land of southern Africa was described as having plenty cattle.
In this period, all Africans were taught about God the Creator, and the Queen and her son forbade all inhabitants of the land from worshipping things like the sun, stars and idols. This was almost in 1000 BCE.
Both the Israelites and the Ethiopians were black and smooth skinned with wooly hair.
Solomon’s Ethiopian son, conceived by Makeda, was mistaken for Solomon when he first arrived in Israel at the age of 23.
Solomon was told about the striking resemblance of Ebna la Hakim to his father.
When Solomon finally saw his first born son, he said that he was handsomer than him and bore the perfect likeness of King David when he was in his youth.
When Ebna la Hakim was crowned in Jerusalem, he was given the name King David III.
So it should be obvious that the people we are dealing with here were black people and not whites or of mixed race like the modern Arabs.
Germanic whites who now masquerade as Jews could not be found in the regions we are discussing at this point in time and they would only enter inland Africa thousands of years later from the cold north.