Taoudenni

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 22 ° 40 ′  N , 3 ° 58 ′  W

Map: Mali
marker
Taoudenni​
Magnify-clip.png
Mali

Taoudenni (or Taoudeni ) is a salt mine in a Sebkha , a former salt lake in the Sahara , 700 km north of Timbuktu in Mali . It is known for its good rock salt .

history

After the conquest of the salt mine for centuries used Taghaza through from Morocco coming Saadi was in 1586, at the time of Songhai eich opened, the salt mine in Taoudenni and operated with slaves. In 1906 a French camel rider corps ( Méharisten ) described two routes from Timbuktu to Taoudenni. During the reign of Moussa Traoré , the salt mine served as a prison camp for dissidents from 1969 to 1988 , many of whom did not survive the rigors of forced labor.

Extraction of the salt plates

Originally located near the brackish water- donating well at Ksar Smeïda, salt production shifted towards the Agorgot hill. Today, in an extremely inhospitable and hostile place, supposedly free, but mostly debt-bonded workers work there, and use primitive picks to cut pits up to 4 m deep out of the rock salt layers with a size of about 125 cm × 50 cm . An ingot called adile weighs about 30 kg when fully hewn. The daily norm is the production of 4 panels per worker. Before the three high-quality rock salt layers are reached - the deepest is the best (two of the salt slabs can be hewn from its layer thickness and that of the second best) - a 1.50 m thick layer of clay and some inferior layers of salt must first be removed . This means that the spoil is almost forty times the volume of salable salt. If a pit is exploited, another is dug - on an open area between the overburden mounds - so that there are now thousands. In the winter of 2007/2008 around 1000 men are said to have worked in teams of three in the pits - almost all of them leave Taoudenni in the summer months after the mining season, which lasts from October to April.

Salt plates from Taoudenni in Mopti

Transport to Timbuktu

Traditionally, the salt plates, four per dromedary, were transported to Timbuktu with a caravan from Timbuktu, organized by members of the Kunta tribe and called in Tamaschek Azalai , which takes 20 days. Nowadays, trucks are increasingly used for transportation. At Timbuktu, the salt plates on the Niger were shipped to southern Mali.

Todays situation

In 2006, geological explorations of the Taoudenni basin were completed and six exploration blocks in a semicircle south and south-east of Taoudenni were tendered for future oil production. Algerians and Italians (ENI) were awarded the contract.

Due to the reorganization of the Malian territory by January 2016, the area around Taoudenni to a new administrative unit that was région Taoudenni, which in turn consists of four circles. The area was previously an arrondissement of Timbuktu County.

Central transport routes for drugs from South America for the European market run in this area.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Report by Capitaine Cauvin: De Tombouctou à Taodéni (French)
  2. ↑ sketch of Lieutenant Cortier: routes from Timbuktu to Taoudenni (French)
  3. ↑ B. & H. Papendieck: Journey from Timbuktu to Taoudeni , December 2007, pages 8-10: The prison camp in Taoudenni (PDF; 851 kB)
  4. ↑ geographic data of Fort Smeïda / Taoudenni
  5. ↑ geographic data of the Agorgot salt mine
  6. ^ Bing Maps: Pit fields of the salt mine near Taoudenni
  7. ↑ Chinci World Atlas: Average temperatures in Taoudenni (English) ( Memento of the original from April 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.chinci.com
  8. ↑ B. & H. Papendieck: Journey from Timbuktu to Taoudeni , December 2007, page 8: Bondage, photos: pages 5 + 7 (PDF file; 851 kB)
  9. ↑ Photo of the clay and salt layers in a mine pit
  10. ↑ B. & H. Papendieck: Journey from Timbuktu to Taoudeni , December 2007, page 13: Photo of loaded dromedaries (PDF; 851 kB)
  11. ↑ B. & H. Papendieck: Journey from Timbuktu to Taoudeni , December 2007, page 2: Oil concessions (PDF; 851 kB)

literature

  • Hans Ritter: Salt caravans in the Sahara , Atlantis-Verlag Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7611-0580-0
  • Gerd Heussler: Trans Sahara, pages 64–72, Orell Füssli Verlag 1978, ISBN 3-280-00953-7 - Chapter The Agorgot Salt Mines - A travel report with photos from December 1975