The king represented the soul and vitality of the nation, and gold reinforced this image of him. The Ashanti king's palace had several oblong courtyards surrounded by rectangular buildings. The walls of the palace compound and the shrines included inside were decorated with curving, abstract designs modeled out of mud and painted. Although the Ashanti never converted to Islam, Muslims living nearby probably influenced these decorations. Indeed, the patterns recall those of Hausa houses in northern Nigeria, where Islam is strong. Great Zimbabwe Ancestors of the Shona in Zimbabwe, the Karanga, built the ancient city-state of Great Zimbabwe.
Great Zimbabwe flourished from the 12th to the 15th century, most likely as a center of trade. Some of this trade was with Arabs and Asians who arrived on the nearby east African coast by ship. The surviving ruins of numerous large stone structures testify to Great Zimbabwe's wealth and power. A massive wall known as the Great Enclosure rings the largest complex of buildings, which probably served as the palace. The Great Enclosure was skillfully crafted from locally quarried stones, without the use of mortar or cement, and rises as high as 10 m , with walls up to 5 m thick. At the top, two rows of cut stones are arranged in a double chevron pattern. Most of the buildings inside the wall were built of interwoven reeds and branches, known as wattlework, and were reinforced with mud bricks and sheltered by a thatched roof. Remains of enclosures for livestock, along with pottery figurines of cattle, show that the inhabitants were probably animal herders at one time, and continued to raise livestock after they became traders. One of the most distinctive structures in the Great Enclosure is the Conical Tower, which is 9 m tall and built of stone. It may have provided a symbolic representation of the king's power. At a short distance from the Great Enclosure, another set of structures called the Hill Complex may have been used for defense or for religious purposes.
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