Hi All,



I’m (S. Walter) sending this out for a friend of mine who hopes someone in the Histarch community can help him:



Consultant for Preservation of Fired-Clay Iron Smelting Furnaces in Bassar, Togo, West Africa



The conical furnaces are 3-3.5 m in height and ca. 2m in diameter.  They were last used ca. 1905. The walls are up to 75-80 cm thick near the base.  They consist of two layers: an interior layer that is like pottery resulting the high smelting temperatures (ca. 1300o C.); and, an exterior level that probably ranges from stoneware near the internally high-fired core to terra cotta toward the external surface.  A few have been indigenously repaired over a century ago.  Given the massive size of these furnaces it is clear they frequently reused but maintenance may have been done within and without.



They are gradually deteriorating due to sun, rain and wind.  I had 10 of them protected with a U.S. Embassy grant in 2003.  A circular base of cement was built around the exterior and termite-treated wood beams support aluminum roofs.  However, a bush fire in 2008 destroyed the roofs over at least 3-5 of them.  At that time, now good local organization had been created to prevent such disasters and I was not in Togo from 2003-2008. They now have a well-organized and well-led committee for preservation under the direction of Lantame BASSABI who is from Nangbani whose ancestors built the furnaces.   In addition, in December 2017, an international group from Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Senegal, Mali, France and the U.S. (yours truly) met for several days to see how to submit a list of important sites to UNESCO to become part of a series of World Heritage sites representing West African ironworking, which goes back to 2400 yrs ago in Bassar.  In fact, I discovered the subterranean slag pit and portion of the furnace superstructure in 2013 that dates to 400-200 B.C. 



The site I am talking about, Mpampou I, is situated about 3 km north of the former smelting village of Nangbani, which is part of the Bassar agglomeration in north-central Togo.  The site has partially or fully-standing remains of 58 furnaces, 10 of which were protected in 2003.  One of the decisions of the group was to redo the protection for the 10 already protected, integrating it better into the local ecology and perhaps utilizing modern methods of preservation to keep the actual furnaces from further deterioration.  This may include some permanent vegetation clearance, rebuilding &/or modifying the existing hangars that protect the furnaces, and strategy for protecting the fire-clay structure directly.  

II remember visiting a ruin called Casa Grande, I think, in southern Arizona, that I saw protected in a similar way that I used, but I think my approach is outmoded.  Some are in favor of an eco-tourism type site that preserves the furnaces but tries to leave them in their natural environment.  This might lead to the removal of the cement structures at their base and other modifications.



The site of Nangbani is in the Bassar region where I have conducted archaeological studies since 1981, including trips in 2013 and 2015-17.  Bassar is about 230 miles from the coast at 9.0-9.5 degrees latitude with a savanna-woodland type vegetation with rain averaging 55 inches per year. The road is paved from the capital (Lome) to Bassar.  The rainy season is from March/April to Oct/Nov with the more intense rains in July-August-and especially September.



In short, we are looking for someone to advise the committee on protective measures to help preserve the furnaces, as well as potentially ideas for the creation of a more natural setting at the same time. The issue of protecting the furnaces structures beyond shelters from wind and rain is the most important question to be addressed.



To respond, or for further information or to  see photos, please respond to:



Dr. Phil Debarros:



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