Why was Great Zimbabwe incorrectly credited to non-African civilizations in the past?

In the past, Great Zimbabwe was incorrectly attributed to non-African civilizations, such as the Phoenician, Greek, or Egyptian cultures, primarily due to European explorers' biases in the late 19th century.1

Upon encountering the site's sophisticated stonework and evidence of an advanced culture, these explorers struggled to accept that such a complex structure could have been built by Africans. Influenced by their own preconceptions, some even speculated that the ruins were the legendary city of Ophir, associated with King Solomon’s mines.12

These erroneous claims were eventually dismantled by scientific archaeological research. In 1905, English archaeologist David Randall-MacIver concluded that the ruins were of medieval, exclusively African origin—a finding later confirmed by Gertrude Caton-Thompson in 1929. It is a fundamental ethical principle to recognize and respect the historical achievements of all cultures, and the attribution of Great Zimbabwe to its rightful Shona builders is a vital correction in the historical record.12