Renovated historic mineralogy museum in Tsumeb finally open
The renovated historic mineralogy museum on the old mine site in Tsumeb was officially inaugurated on 3 March with its first exhibition pieces on display.
The historic mineralogy building (built-in 1950) was repaired for later use as a museum and for the preservation and safeguarding of the existing sample and map archives and was renovated at a cost of over N$250,000 from the German Embassy Windhoek.
The former historic mine site offers ideal conditions for conveying knowledge about the important geological, mineralogical and historical aspects that make up the Tsumeb Mine and the mining town of Tsumeb. In the historic mineralogy building, where world-renowned mineralogists such as John Innes, Bruno H. Geier and Hugo Strunz worked, more important and extremely rare new type minerals were discovered and identified than anywhere else in the world.
The restored mineralogy can thus make an important contribution to communicating the natural-historical and industrial-cultural importance of the place to the young population of Namibia, a country that is rich in natural resources.
In April 2021 it was decided by the National Heritage Council of Namibia and the Tsumeb Municipality to develop the historic mine site in Tsumeb as a national heritage site.
Since then, various partners such as the Tsumeb Museum, Dundee Precious Metal, the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Germany’s Federal Institute for Materials Research have been working on the implementation of this plan with financial support from Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and other institutions in Germany.
