Abstract:
The iconic 13th-century hilltop site of Mapungubwe (Limpopo Province, South Africa) has been investigated archaeologically for almost
nine decades, yet little is known about its living context prior to its
‘discovery’ by the scientific community in 1933. We contribute to
Mapungubwe‘s early history by examining its association with
François Bernard Lotrie (or Lottering), who allegedly knew of the site‘s
existence in the late 19th century. Lotrie appears to have lived as a
hermit for a time near to Mapungubwe Hill, with romanticised
versions of this narrative filtering into several texts. Writing an
evidence-based account of this figure remains challenging owing to the
scarcity of reliable primary sources. However, archival traces suggest
that Lotrie and later his son Bernard Lottering acted as informal
‘custodians’ of the site, while also extracting value from it, before its
emergence into archaeological fame. Our study exposes the fragile
boundaries between myth and contested history in early accounts of
Mapungubwe, revealing that the site was not as remote and unknown
in the landscape of the recent past as previously thought.
