Between 1200 and 1300 Mapungubwe was Southern Africa’s most sophisticated trading centre. Gold, copper and beads were traded with the far-off peoples of India, China and Egypt. Although the ruins were discovered in 1932, they were kept under wraps as they undermined the apartheid government’s assertions that no black people had lived in South Africa before 1652 and if there were any, by any chance, they were very unsophisticated indeed.