Ngwenya, on Eswatini's north-western border, holds two stories that could hardly be more different, and together they make it a fascinating stop: the world's oldest iron ore mine, where humans were already extracting minerals tens of thousands of years ago, and a glassblowing factory that today turns used bottles into works of art exported around the world. Humanity's most distant past and today's creativity, just a short distance apart.
On Bomvu Ridge, above the town, is Lion Cavern: an ancient excavation where, according to archaeologists, iron ore (specularite and haematite) was mined more than 40,000 years ago, making it the oldest known mining operation on the planet. An excellent visitor centre, opened in 2005, tells this story with dioramas, minerals and even an old steam locomotive. A few kilometres away, the Ngwenya Glass factory blows 100% recycled glass and puts on one of the country's best-loved craft spectacles.
This guide covers Ngwenya with a practical eye: how to visit the mine and Lion Cavern, how to see the glassblowers in action, what to buy, how much everything costs and how to combine Ngwenya with Sibebe Rock and the Malolotja mountains, both very close. Thanks to its location on the country's busiest border, Ngwenya is both the first image of Eswatini for many travellers and one of the most memorable.
On Ngwenya's Bomvu Ridge, humans were already mining iron ore more than 40,000 years ago to obtain pigments such as red ochre and shiny specularite, used as cosmetics and in rituals: that is why its Lion Cavern is considered the oldest mining site in the world. Millennia later, the same mountain was home to an industrial iron mine that operated in the 20th century, with its ore exported by rail. And at its foot, in 1979, the Ngwenya Glass factory was born, a Swedish cooperation project that today blows recycled glass. The full story —from the Stone Age to today's glass— is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The cool granite Highveld where Mbabane, the capital, stands, next to the world's oldest mine at Ngwenya and the almost untouched mountains of Malolotja.
Read the history of Mbabane and the north-western Highveld →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Ngwenya's story begins deep in prehistory. On Bomvu Ridge ('red hill' in siSwati, named for the iron that shows at the surface), archaeologists have documented one of the oldest known human activities: mining for minerals more than 40,000 years ago, and by some datings even earlier. That evidence, found mainly in the cave known as Lion Cavern, makes Ngwenya the oldest known mine in the world, a record few sites in Africa can challenge.
It's worth understanding what those first miners were after. They weren't mining iron to make tools, because ironworking wouldn't arrive for tens of thousands of years. They wanted minerals with a metallic sheen, such as haematite and, above all, specularite, a form of iron ore that glitters as if it had silvery scales. From these they made pigments: red ochre and shimmering powders that, mixed with fat, were used to paint the body, decorate objects and carry out rituals.
This ceremonial use of the mineral lasted for millennia. For centuries, glittering specularite was a cosmetic and a status symbol reserved for chiefs in southern Africa. So long before cities, writing or farming existed, people in this part of the continent were already running mining operations, with excavations, stone tools and the hauling of material. It can be seen as one of humanity's first 'industries'.
Pigment mining at Ngwenya carried on, on and off, throughout prehistory and history, but its true age only came to light in the 20th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, while modern iron mining was under way on the same mountain, archaeologists studied the ancient workings. Among them was the South African Peter Beaumont. They collected stone tools and other remains, and scientific dating showed them to be tens of thousands of years old.
Those finds put Ngwenya on the world map of archaeology. Lion Cavern and the workings around it showed that mining was neither a recent invention nor something only 'advanced' civilisations did. It is a practice rooted in the African Stone Age. Old dates, tools and tunnels together made Ngwenya a case study cited around the world on how our species first began to exploit natural resources.
Because of its value, Ngwenya Mine and Lion Cavern are on Eswatini's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage, as an exceptional record of the relationship between people and minerals since the dawn of humanity. In a sense, the site tells the story not only of Eswatini but of the whole human species.
Thousands of years after those first miners, the same hill was mined again, this time on an industrial scale. In the mid-20th century, while Swaziland was still under British administration, a large open-pit iron mine was developed at Ngwenya to work the mountain's rich deposits. High-grade ore was dug out of the huge pit you can still see today from the trail to Lion Cavern.
Getting the iron out required infrastructure: roads, facilities and, above all, a railway that carried the ore to the coast of Mozambique, to the port of Maputo (then Lourenço Marques), for export. Mining was one of the country's main sources of income and jobs in the middle decades of the 20th century, and it left its mark on the landscape in the form of the great open pit that cuts into the mountain.
Over time the most profitable deposits ran out and the industrial mine wound down. The hill's double life, a pigment quarry tens of thousands of years ago and a modern iron mine in the 20th century, is exactly what the Ngwenya visitor centre tells today. It opened in 2005 and has dioramas, mineral samples, archive photographs and an old British steam locomotive from 1913, a reminder of the days of the ore railway.
At the foot of the mountain with the world's oldest mine, a very different and equally fascinating story began in the 20th century: the story of Ngwenya Glass. The factory opened in 1979 through a Swedish aid project, which brought in the machinery, built the workshop and trained Swazi craftspeople in the ancient art of glassblowing. Two local glassblowers even travelled to Sweden and spent nine months learning at the famous Kosta Boda, one of the most prestigious glassworks in the world.
From 1981 to 1985 the factory was run entirely by Swazis, but then it closed. Its glass elephant figures, however, had won over the Prettejohn family, farmers from South Africa's Eastern Cape. They knew nothing about glassblowing but decided to reopen the factory in June 1987. Since then, Ngwenya Glass has made all its pieces from 100% recycled glass: used bottles and jars collected all over Eswatini come back to life as animal figures, glasses, vases and design pieces.
Today the factory employs dozens of people at fair wages and is a benchmark for fair trade and sustainability across the region. Its products are exported all over the world, and its complex, next to the Ngwenya/Oshoek border post, has become one of the most popular visits in the country. Travellers can watch the glassblowers at work and take home a one-of-a-kind piece made from recycled waste. So in one corner of north-western Eswatini, humanity's first 'industry' sits alongside one of the most creative examples of today's circular economy.
