Ancient Ferrous Metallurgy Sites of Burkina Faso

Long before industrial steel, smelters in what is now Burkina Faso were drawing iron from ore in natural-draught furnaces. Five clusters of sites across the country preserve that story: Douroula reaches back to the 8th century BCE, the nation's earliest trace of ironworking, while Tiwêga, Yamané, Kindibo and Békuy chart its growth through the second millennium CE. Village blacksmiths still carry the craft's ritual role today. UNESCO inscribed the ensemble in 2019.