Black Hephaistos: exploring culture and science in African iron working

bibliographic database
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DVD / video

Title:	Black Hephaistos: exploring culture and science in African iron working
Editor:	David, Nic
Year:	1995
Language:	English
City of publisher:	Calgary
Publisher:	University of Calgary
Geographic terms:	Cameroon Nigeria
Subjects:	iron forging Sukur anthropological films (form) videos (form)
External link:	https://youtu.be/6i4zHAEn7y4
Abstract:	The video presents traditional African iron-smelting and forging in the field and in the lab. Uniting ritual, magical, and technical aspects, smelting technology is metaphorically linked to procreation. Video footage, filmed in 1989 and 1993 in the Mandara highlands of Cameroon and Nigeria, records the process of smelting iron by Ajokfa, a Plata Kapa iron master, and fining and forging by Hundu, a Sukur smith who works within the UNESCO World Heritage Sukur Cultural Landscape. The viewer participates in the metallurgical laboratory work, including optical and electron microscopy, that reveals the workings of traditional iron metallurgy. The scene shifts back and forth between Central Africa and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Arizona, where Dr David Killick demonstrates how scientific understanding of these processes is gained through metallurgical nalyses of their products and byproducts. This is the third of Nic David's films on society and technology in the Mandara mountains.