Heritage Cases

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Kuruman Moffat Mission in its Wider Landscape

CaseViews

CaseHeader

HeritageAuthority(s): 

Case Type: 

ProposalDescription: 

Proposed archaeological research project, including field school with Sol Plaatje University, in and around land associated with the Kuruman Moffat Mission, Seoding, Kuruman, Northern Cape.

Expanded_Motivation: 

Kuruman Moffat Mission (KMM) operates today as a heritage site owned by the Uniting Congregational Church of South Africa (UCCSA). It is focused on historic buildings associated with the mission, established on the site by the London Missionary Society (LMS) after 1824. Perhaps of greatest significance is the 1830s church, a Grade 2 Provincial Heritage Site gazetted in 1939 (Site ID: 28208, SAHRIS Site Ref. 9/2/055/0003-001), with wooden beams provided by Mzilikazi and a dung floor, recently the subject of geo-archaeological study (Berna 2017). Displays at the site feature a range of historic documents and artefacts, including a printing press associated with some of the earliest printed works in Setswana, including bible translations, designated in 1997 as a Specifically Declared Heritage Object (Site ID: 28207, SAHRIS Site Ref. 9/2/055/0008). By 1835, visitors to Kuruman described it as 'the most perfect Station ' (Burrow 1971), and more recently the Comaroffs have suggested that it was 'the model Nonconformist station in the interior, the most celebrated token of its type' (1997). As one of very few London Missionary Society stations that operates as a heritage site in the present, this clearly remains the case. KMM in short represents what a missionary station could and should look like, a model that was applied and imitated at various locations across southern Africa, with varying degrees of success. One aim of this project is to interrogate the reality of this assumed exemplary status. We will do this through the archaeological examination of a number of locations in and around the historic buildings, associated with European missionaries, that are the main focus of the site and its interpretation today. Research will be conducted through an annual field school, organized with colleagues in the Heritage Department at the recently established Sol Plaatje University (SPU) in Kimberley. The first season, in July 2018, will provide training in a range of field techniques for the first cohort of SPU archaeology students, who will work alongside students from the first cohort of the new archaeology degree at the University of Cambridge. As well as leading to student projects and scholarly publications, archaeological work at the site will contribute to the development of new site interpretation, culminating in the bicentenary of the site in 2024.

ApplicationDate: 

Saturday, April 14, 2018 - 17:08

CaseID: 

12430

OtherReferences: 

ReferenceList: 

CitationReferenceType
Ashley, Ceri. 2010. Migration, Missionaries and Contact: Archaeological Research in the Khwebe Hills, Botswana. Archaeology International. 13:36-41
Berna, F. 2017 Geo-ethnoarchaeology study of the traditional Tswana dung floor from the Moffat Mission Church, Kuruman, North Cape Province, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. Volume 9, Issue 6, pp.1115-1123. DOI 10.1007/s12520-017-0470-0.
Burrow, John 1971. Travels in the Wilds of Africa: : Being The Diary Of A Young Scientific Assistant Who Accompanied Sir Andrew Smith In The Expedition Of 1834-1836. AA Balkema, South Africa.
Comaroff, John L. & Comaroff, Jean 1997. Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume Two: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier. University of Chicago Press.
Jacobs, N. J. 2003. Environment, Power, and Injustice: A South African History. Cambridge University Press. 

Images
Image of Kuruman Moffat Mission, published by Moffat 1842, but produced by Charles Davidson Bell in 1835
Mission Church, April 2018
Interior of Mission Church, April 2018
Side of Moffat House, September 2017
Ground penetrating radar survey between mission church and Hamilton House, September 2017
Survey at rear of Hamilton House, September 2017
Historic location of furrow, showing depression, but also trees planted to mark edge of mission garden
Location of old Chapman house, adjacent to grounds of KMM
Fields across river from mission, that 1850 map suggest was location of African village
Bird's Eye Image of Kuruman Moffat Mission, published by Moffat 1842, but produced by Charles Davidson Bell in 1835
 
 

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