thumb|200px|right|The Zimbabwe Bird
The stone-carved Zimbabwe Bird is the national emblem of Zimbabwe, appearing on the national flags and coats of arms of both Zimbabwe and former Rhodesia, as well as on banknotes and coins (first on the Rhodesian pound and then on the Rhodesian dollar). It probably represents the bateleur eagle (Terathopius ecaudatus) or the African fish eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer). The bird's design is derived from a number of soapstone sculptures found in the ruins of the medieval city of Great Zimbabwe.
It is now the definitive icon of independent Zimbabwe, with archaeologist Edward Matenga listing over 100 organizations which now incorporate the bird in their logo.
Origins
The original carved birds are from the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe, which was built by the ancestors of the Shona, starting in the 11th century and inhabited for over 300 years. The ruins, after which modern Zimbabwe was named, cover some and are the largest ancient stone construction in sub-Saharan Africa. Among its notable elements are the soapstone bird sculptures, about tall and standing on columns more than tall, which were originally installed on walls and monoliths within the city.
Various explanations have been advanced to explain the symbolic meaning of the birds. One suggestion is that each bird was erected in turn to represent a new king, but this would have required improbably long reigns. More probably, the Zimbabwe birds represent sacred or totemic animals of the Shona – the bateleur eagle (Shona: chapungu), which was held to be a messenger from Mwari (God) and the ancestors, or the fish eagle (hungwe) which it has been suggested was the original totem of the Shona.
Colonial acquisition and return to Zimbabwe
right|thumb|Three of the Zimbabwe Birds, photographed around 1891
In 1889 a European hunter, Willi Posselt, travelled to Great Zimbabwe after hearing about it from another European explorer, Karl Mauch. He climbed to the highest point of the ruins despite being told that it was a sacred site where he should not trespass, and found the birds positioned in the centre of an enclosure around an apparent altar. He later wrote:
Posselt compensated Andizibi with a payment of blankets and "some other articles". As the bird on its pedestal was too heavy for him to carry, he hacked it off and hid the pedestal with the intention of returning later to retrieve it. A German missionary came to own the pedestal of one bird, which he sold to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin in 1907. Bent recorded that there were eight birds, six large and two small, and that there had probably originally been more as there were several additional stone pedestals of which the tops had been broken off.
The British attributed Great Zimbabwe to ancient Mediterranean builders, believing Black Africans to be incapable of constructing such a complex structure; thus in Rhodes' mind, as a 1932 guidebook put it, it was "a favorite symbol of the link between the order civilisation derived from the North or the East and the savage barbarism of Southern and Central Africa before the advent of the European." Bent attributed the birds to the Phoenicians.
In 1981, a year after the attainment of majority rule in Zimbabwe, the South African government returned four of the sculptures to the country in exchange for a world-renowned collection of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants) housed in Harare; the fifth remains at Groote Schuur.
The pedestal kept in Berlin was reunited with the upper part of the statue for an exhibition, Legacies of Stone, in Belgium in 1997. On account of pressure following this, the German museum returned this portion of the bird's pedestal to Zimbabwe in 2003. The birds were displayed for a while in the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo and the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, but are now housed in a small museum on the Great Zimbabwe site.
It is now the definitive icon of independent Zimbabwe with Matenga (2001)