CNR-JSPS Bilateral Program 2018-2019: “Damage assessment and conservation of underground space as valuable resources for human activities use in Italy and Japan” Presentation at the first visit of the Italian team in Japan (June 2018) Bruno Venditto (CNR-ISSM): "Exploring Namibian’s Underground Built Assets: Should they receive a “Heritage” status? “ Namibia underground assets are largely untapped considering the fundamental role that culture and heritage play to promote national and local development. It is hence important identifying, protecting and managing those assets. When deciding on a course of action, one must be cognisant that the sites cannot be moved in order to preserve them, they are non-renewable heritage resources which remain for the future generation only for as long as the authority cherish and protect them. The most sustainable way to protect these sites is to have local community as caretakers who should see them as resources. If wisely cared for, they can become an important archaeo-tourism destination and educational centre.

1. Exploring Namibian’s
Underground Built Assets:
Should they receive a
“Heritage” status?
CNR-JSPS Bilateral program 2018-2019
Bruno Venditto
venditto@issm.cnr.it
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

2. Some Definitions
Underground Build Assets are artificial cavities
realized by man or positively readjusted for his needs
that have historical and/or anthropological interest.
Include both man-made works and natural caves, when
these latter are readjusted to human needs.
(Parise at all. 2013)

3. Namibia is a relatively young country, previously known as
South West Africa was a German colony till 1915, after
WWI it was administrated as a South African
protectorate, de facto it was a South African province
and was subject to the same apartheid regime. In 1990
after a prolonged liberation struggle started in the sixty,
Namibia gained its independence. In this 28 years the
country had to tackle the structural imbalances
determined by more than 100 years of colonisation which
had left it with a dual economy dependent of extraction
of raw materials (diamonds, among the main one).
The Namibian Context
Life expectancy 62 years
Literacy rate 89%
Gini coefficient 0.597
Unemployment rate 28%
Poor households 18.3%
2.4 mil people
GDP pc 11,830 (projection 17)
Dual economic sector
Export Raw materials
Little value added
Net importer of agricultural
Products
High urbanisation

4. Namibian National Heritage:
The state of the art
Heritage is that which is inherited from past
generation, maintained in the present and bestowed for
the benefit of future generations
Currently Namibia has 119 sites declared as National
heritage, divided into Cultural, Natural and Intangible
sites, the majority of them are Natural sites, some are
cultural and only a few are Intangible sites.
The Natural sites of Twyvfelfontain (2007) and the
Namib Sand Sea (2013) are the only two Namibian’s
UNESCO World Heritage Sites; the country share
instead the site of Tsodilo, (one with the highest
concentrations of rock art in the world) with Botswana

5. Namibian National Heritage:
The state of the art
There are 8 sites in the UNESCO tentative list:
• Branderberg National Monument Area (2002)
• Fishriver Canyon (2002)
• Welwitschia Plants (2002)
• Benguela Current Marine Ecosystem Site (2016)
• Etosha Pan (2016)
• Sân Living Cultural Landscape (2016)
• Succulent Karoo Protected Area (2016)
• Okavango Delta (2016)

6. Twyfelfontein
トゥウェイフルフォンテーン
ナミビア北西部のトゥウェイフルフォンテーン
は、2000年以上前の岩刻画が、アフリカで最も
集まった場所の一つ。現在までで、2075もの岩
刻画が発見されている。いずれも保存状態は良
く、モチーフには動物や人間、動物の足跡など
のほか、5本指のライオンなど珍しいものもある。
六つの洞窟からは、儀式で踊る人間を黄土で描
いた岩絵も発見された。また、一帯からは新石
器時代の石の工芸品、ダチョウの卵で作った
ビーズ、片岩のペンダントなども発見され、こ
れら一連の作品は、遊牧民が急激に増える紀元
前10世紀以前にこの地を支配していた狩猟採集
民の、主に信仰体系に関する貴重な記録とされ
ている。
Twyfelfontein (Damara/Nama: jumping waterhole), is a site of ancient
rock engravings in the North-western Namibia. It consists of a spring in
a valley flanked by the slopes of a sandstone table mountain that
receives very little rainfall and has a wide range of diurnal
temperatures.

7. 霧が独自の生物を育む海岸砂漠。ナミビアの大西
洋岸に広がり、霧に覆われた広大な砂漠や砂丘が
見られる世界で唯一の海岸砂漠。川の流れや海流
、風を介してアフリカ大陸内部から砂が運ばれ、
現在も形成され続けているこの砂漠は、島状丘や
平原、底の平らな窪地などの様々な地形が見られ
、美しく広大であるとともに、風による砂と生物
の相互作用の顕著な例である。砂漠環境に適応し
た特殊な固有の動植物が生息・生育しており、砂
と風と霧により変化し続ける環境という極限状態
での生物進化は無類のものとなっている。
Namib Sand Sea is the only coastal desert in the world that
includes extensive dune fields influenced by fog. Covering an
area of over three million hectares and a buffer zone of
899,500 hectares, the site is composed of two dune systems,
an ancient semi-consolidated one overlain by a younger active
one.. Fog is the primary source of water in the site, accounting
for a unique environment in which endemic invertebrates,
reptiles and mammals adapt to an ever-changing variety of
microhabitats and ecological niches.
Namib Sand Sea
ナミブ砂海

8. Tsodilo
ツォディロ
Located near the Namibian –Botswana border the Tsodilo Hills have provided shelter and other resources to
people for over 100,000 years. It represent not only a remarkable archaeological site for its rock arts, and its
continuing traditions, but it also represents a place which indicates how over many thousands of years the
symbiotic nature/human relationship has evolved
アフリカ大陸南端、ボツワナ西北端
に位置し「砂漠のルーブル」といわ
れている。世界で最も石の芸術が集
積している場所の一つで、4500以上
の絵がカラハリ砂漠のわずか10k㎡の
地域に点在する。少なくとも10万年
以上にわたる人類の歴史や環境の変
化が、これらの絵画を通して読み取
れる。ジンバブエ共和国のマトボ・
ヒル壁画群とナミビア壁画群とのほ
ぼ中間に位置し、サン人の美術全体
の伝播に大きな役割を果たした。

9. Underground Built Assets:
Namibian Categories
Cavities constructed in the subsoil:
Excavation in gallery is realised by removing
the rock entirely underground. The walls are
then coated with different masonry
techniques.
Caves with anthropogenic interventions.
Natural caves that have undergone limited
human interventions. They represent the
boundary between the natural caves and those
of artificial origin

10. Underground built assets represent an immense heritage
which could be used to generate new functions or to revisit
and restore the old function based on their historical and
economic uses in order to develop sustainable activities
Issues to considers
• Security: conservation of the sites...
• Maintenance: which parts of the heritage should be
preserved and used for different purposes
• Institutional: Public/Private use-property of the sites
• Involvement of local actors for promotion of local
development
Underground Built Heritage

11. Namibian Underground Built Assets
Cave of Bushman Paradise
The complex of underground artifacts caved in the past to manage
urban functions and now significant part of local cultural heritage
The paintings in the Cave
of Bushman Paradise
itself are situated under
a overhang at the head of
a amphitheatre and
shows numerous humans
and animals and a sphinx.
The monument also
includes two caves
diagonally opposite from
there that also contain
paintings plus a waterfall
below them with its
catchment area. The
paintings have been
known since the beginning
of the 20th century

12. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
Phillipp's Cave
On a guest farm the cave is 15 m deep, 35 m broad
an 7 m high. Accommodation for nomads
Most popular rock art until 1977.
depicts animals but also human and
handprints –

13. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 site is important for the
understanding of the Middle Stone Age
period in southern Africa. The
conditions of the site at the start of
the fieldwork in 2007 were shocking:
the refill of the old excavation, action
should be implemented to protect this
heritage site of worldwide
archaeological significance.
R. Vogelsang, J. Richter, Z. Jacobs, B. Eichhorn, V.
Linseele & R. G. Roberts (2010) Journal of African
Archaeology 8/2/2010 185-218

14. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
Oase Cave
The paintings date from various periods, there are 71 individual paintings or groups thereof they
depict:
Various animals
A group of 60 people.
A number of hunting scenes.
2 x pairs of humans in a hut

15. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
The Mines
Mining in Namibia dates as far back
as more than 400 years ago, as
evidenced from archeological work
of copper smelting at Matchless
mine, located about 40 km west of
Windhoek. Even long before mining
technology was introduced,
Namibians have been smelting
copper in anthills, with aid of
charcoal, in the Otavi Mountainland
The legacy of this long mining
history is an inventory of more than
260 mines which were abandoned
by their owners, of these 150 have
been censed.
Tshivute Wilhelm Iipinge (2016)

16. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
The Mines
Mining –These structures can reach huge depths and
development. The 150 + mines censed indicate that they
have been closed in a period ranging from 1905 to 1999
– Quarries,
– Metal mines
– Mines and quarries of other materials (non-metallic)
– Underground quarries
– Traces of excavation activities aimed at the
identification of mineral deposits.

17. Namibian Underground Built Assets:
The Berg Mine
The Berg Aukas, locality has become
widely known following the discovery in
1991 of a Miocene hominoid mandible in
rubble from the mine
With the cessation of mining activity, level
5 of shaft No. 1 is currently under at least
100 m of water. It is, therefore, unlikely that
we shall ever gain any contextual
information pertaining to the provenance or
age of the hominid femur.

18. The Way Forward
Selection of sites, Individuation of the most suitable based
on the historical function/use
Assign an heritage function
Monitoring, communication of historical functions,
restoration, fruition (installations of technological
instruments to diffuse / reconstruct the site
underground life)
Same functions as in the
past: the historical sites
restored and used again
according new parameters
(productive spaces
reinvented according to the
contemporary standards,
sustainable living)
New functions: the sites
are restored and new
functions are located but
the communicative role is
preserved (shops, hotels,
restaurants, urban
facilities in pre-existent
underground spaces)

19. Considering the fundamental role that culture and heritage play
to promote national and local development, identifying
protecting and managing Namibian underground heritage assets
should be encouraged.
When deciding on a course of action, one must be cognisant that
the sites cannot be moved in order to preserve them and they
are also non-renewable heritage resources which remain for the
future generation only for as long as we cherish and protect
them.
The most sustainable way to protect these sites is to have local
community as caretakers who see them as resources. If wisely
cared for, they can become an important archaeo-tourism
destination and educational centre.
CONCLUSION