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During our journey back from Nairobi to Cape Town, we stopped to check out The Big Hole, a diamond mine in Kimberley, South Africa. This deleted scene gives a more detailed look at our visit to this unique place.
The Big Hole, Open Mine, Kimberley Mine or Tim Kuilmine is an open-pit and underground mine, and claimed to be the deepest hole excavated by hand, although this claim is disputed.
The first diamonds here were found by Erasmus Jacobs on Colesberg Kopje by members of the "Red Cap Party" from Colesberg on the farm Vooruitzigt belonging to the De Beers brothers, in 1871. The ensuing scramble for claims led to the place being called New Rush, later renamed Kimberley in 1873. From mid-July 1871 to 1914 up to 50,000 miners dug the hole with picks and shovels, yielding 2,720 kilograms (6,000 lb; 13,600,000 carats) of diamonds.
Since the early 2000s, an effort to register the Big Hole as a World Heritage Site has been underway.
In 1872, one year after digging started, the population of the camp of diggers grew to around 50,000. As digging progressed, many men met their deaths in mining accidents. The unsanitary conditions, scarcity of water and fresh vegetables as well as the intense heat in the summer, also took their toll. On 13 March 1888 the leaders of the various mines decided to amalgamate the separate diggings into one big mine and one big company known as De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited, with life governors such as Cecil John Rhodes, Alfred Beit, and Barney Barnato. This huge company further worked on the Big Hole until it came to the depth of 215 metres, with a surface area of about 17 hectares and perimeter of 1.6 kilometres. By 14 August 1914, when over 22 million tons of earth had been excavated, yielding 3,000 kilograms (14,504,566 carats) of diamonds, work on the mine ceased after it was considered the largest hand-dug excavation on earth. By 2005, however, it was reported that a researcher had re-examined mine records and found that the hand-dug portions of the Jagersfontein and Bultfontein diamond mines, also in South Africa, may have been deeper and/or larger in excavated volume. There are other, larger, mine excavations, but these were created using earth-moving equipment rather than manual labour.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is a global diamond certification system. The certification scheme was adopted on 1 January 2003 and renders any global trade of diamonds without government issued certificate as illegal. The efficacy of the Kimberley Process is dependent on its state-led border controls however, these are being undermined by weaker national governments. Organizations such as the Global Witness pulled out of the scheme on 5 December 2011, claiming that the scheme does not provide markets with certainty that the diamonds are not conflict diamonds. Both the Kimberley Process and the US Clean Diamond Trade Act aim to ensure that purchased diamonds are 'morally clean' and are not associated with any foul play. Leonardo DiCaprio's movie Blood Diamond reveals the foul play that can exist in diamond trade and a reference to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is made at the end of the film.
With mining operations closed down in 1914, the open pit became an attraction for visitors to the city. By the 1960s, a gathering together of relics of Kimberley's early days, including old buildings and sundry memorabilia, began to be organised into a formal museum and tourist attraction. In 1965 De Beers appointed Basil Humphreys as museum consultant, with the museum being substantially upgraded as an open-air representation of early Kimberley. These upgrades included streetscapes, dioramas, and exhibits of mining technology and transport. There was an official opening during the Kimberley centenary celebrations in 1971. One of the attractions was the Diamond Hall. The Mine Museum went through subsequent upgrades. Between 2002 and 2005 De Beers invested R50 million in developing the Big Hole into a tourism facility, based on the idea of creating "a lasting legacy for the people of Kimberley." The new facility, the Big Hole Kimberley, and its theme of 'Diamonds and Destiny', was expected to double visitor numbers to the Big Hole.
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#bighole #kimberley #diamondmine
25 авг 2019
