Great Zimbabwe is an imposing site located to the north of the border between modern day ZImbabwe and South Africa. This site has long been an interest in academia, which has led to differing views...Show moreGreat Zimbabwe is an imposing site located to the north of the border between modern day ZImbabwe and South Africa. This site has long been an interest in academia, which has led to differing views of the socio-political nature of the city. Where one sees it as a capital city of a kingdom, some else sees it as a lone standing polity in the ZImbabwe cultural zone. However what does become clear are the large trading networks this site is a part of. There are imports of Chinese porcelain, coins minted on the Swahili coast, and an abundance of glass beads. Not only that but there are beads produced from gold, ostrich eggshell and Achatina (land snail) shells. All of these beads have been studied on their own, but the results from this research often point to the exchange networks. This research tries to combine the different types of beads recovered from sites associated with the Zimbabwe culture, in a literature review to gain a better understanding of what the socio-political dynamics in Great Zimbabwe looked like and how they may have played out. The data gathered for this research mainly point to the divide between social classes. Where golden beads were solely for the elite classes, glass beads and shell beads do show that these objects were not only for the elite groups, but could have been worn by non-elite groups as well. The glass beads further indicate the control that the ruling class had on the trade of beads, while they might have had the best looking version, these beads did trickle down to the rest of the inhabitants as well,, while shell beads were accessible to anyone. This research will not offer an answer to what the exact political nature was of the Great Zimbabwe government, but it opens up the discourse on this topic, in the hopes that it might be developed further, to get to the point in which beads can give an answer to this questionShow less