A WALK WITH THE GOLDEN GIANTS The ancient gold trading city of Thulamela in the northern Kruger National Park changes the narrative of South Africa’s history. Dubbed South Africa’s best-kept archaeological secret, Bridget Hilton-Barber shares the story of this civilisation that flourished for 400 years between the 13th and 17th centuries.
(± 1100 AD to 1450 AD) in Zimbabwe. Thulamela outlasted both.
From around 1 000 AD, as gold emerged to outrival the ivory trade, Thulamela emerged as a city of skilled goldsmiths, blacksmiths, ivory carvers and businesspeople, a system more sophisticated than we imagined and one that lasted for four hundred years before it declined, due to drought and war. It was not until as recently as 1983 that a park ranger discovered Thulamela, and it was not until the 1990s that the site was excavated and restored on a large scale. We imagine the soundscape, drums, and the clink of stones and feel the history underfoot. A thousand people lived on this hill and 2 000m below. The people here traded ivory, gold, leopard skins, and rhino horn along the Indian Ocean Trade Route in exchange for cloth, glass beads, porcelain, copper, and bronze. This trade connected Thulamela to Mapungubwe (± 1075 to 1220 AD), a World Heritage Site on the Limpopo River in South Africa, and Great Zimbabwe
We walk amongst the hilltop ruins, first together, then scattering, each person taking a moment to disappear into the majesty. What an incredible part of South African history, with much to learn and explore. Operated by Return Africa, Pafuri Camp is the springboard for Origin Safari’s remarkable Thulamela experience, a combination of archaeology and history plus wildlife and scenery. Return Africa has just been awarded guiding rights to the Thulamela site, which you may only visit with a guide. Origin Safaris, a tour operator specialising in heritage and archaeology safaris, has recently launched this package. Pafuri Camp overlooks the Luvuvhu River and features a series of elegant tents reached by wooden walkways, a convivial
Pottery shards discovered at Thulamela Hill.
Giant baobab trees form part of the landscape at Thulamela Hill.
S outh African history tends to start in the Cape with the arrival of the settlers or the making of the Zulu Kingdom in the 1800s. “But what if the story of South Africa’s history begins instead, here in the Pafuri triangle in northern Kruger?” asks renowned historian Professor Peter Delius, who has been researching Thulamela and its trading system. It is a late golden afternoon, and we stand atop Thulamela hill, overlooking the valley of the ancients. We are deep in the heart of the wild, near the confluence of the Limpopo and Luvuvhu Rivers. We climb up a steep, stony path past a series of reconstructed stone walls to get to these hillside ruins that were once a royal citadel. There is great majesty here. It is not just the extraordinary views of the floodplain below, dotted with baobabs and herds
of browsing elephants. It is also the powerful sense of history, the contrast between this vast stillness and learning that right here was once a flourishing kingdom.
Thulamela emerged as a city of skilled goldsmiths, blacksmiths, ivory carvers, and businesspeople; a system more sophisticated than we imagined.
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