September is heritage month.
Melville Koppies Central is a good place to celebrate South Africa’s rich heritage, since it’s the only place in Johannesburg where visitors can still see an original furnace used by the first farmers that inhabited Gauteng.
The furnace was last used almost 500 years ago.
First excavated by Wits archaeologist Revil Mason and his team in the 1960s, it was one of many other furnaces unearthed on the Koppies as well as in other areas like Northcliff, Lonehill, Panorama and Bruma.
All but the Koppies furnace have long since disintegrated, been built on or covered over.
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On August 22, Lilith Gwynne, a member of the archaeological society, visited Melville Koppies with other society members and told of how she was part of Mason’s team who restored the furnace after it was vandalised in 1998.
Once it was fixed, they had to test whether it would work.
“We started firing it at night and continued well into the next day,” Gwynne remembers.
Proof that it did work is a bit of twisted copper that resulted from the copper ore firing, which she has since made into a pendant and wore to the Koppies to remember the time.
They used copper ore in the test firing as it needs a much lower temperature to smelt than iron ore.
Celebrate Heritage Month by visiting and seeing more archaeological treasures like the stone tools used by hunter gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago and the stone walls made by the first farmers to encircle their homesteads.
Melville Koppies Central (Nature Reserve and Heritage Site) is open every Sunday in 2021 from 08:00 to 11:30.
There is no need to pre-book. Entrance to the Koppies costs R80 for adults and R40 for children.
Season tickets are also available at R500.
All income is used for maintenance and security of the Koppies, which costs R22 000 per month.
For more information contact wendavid@mweb.co.za or visit www.mk.org.za
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