Tsumeb

The pipe that gave mineralogy some of its rarest species

A mineralised pipe in northern Namibia that collectors treat as one of the great addresses in mineralogy, and the International Union of Geological Sciences counts among a hundred geological heritage sites worldwide for the variety, rarity and sheer beauty of what has come out of it. The name carries the history: Otjiherero Otjiisume, the place of the frogs, for the colours in the rock, and Khoekhoe Tsomsoub, to dig a hole in loose ground, for the mining that was going on long before anyone else arrived. Imperial Germany founded the town in 1905 and it has been a mining town ever since, though the deep workings are now closed. Tsumeb is also the gateway to the north: Etosha is close, and the 60-tonne Hoba meteorite, the largest on Earth, lies in a field forty minutes to the southeast.