Iron ore hills round Bassar.
Smelting here is radiocarbon-dated to the Early Iron Age (about 545 BC to AD 132 at Dekpassanware; a furnace at BAS-273 dated by thermoluminescence to about 200 BC) and then stops; ironworking reappears in the thirteenth century, the start of the Later Iron Age, and grows rapidly after the mid-sixteenth into a regional export industry (de Barros, Iles, Frame and Killick 2020). On 1 January 1200 the district is on the eve of that revival, with little or no smelting. A smelting district, not a town.
Who holds it
- Title
- Not known
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
No lord known.
How things stand that morning
Konkomba and Bassar villages; smelting at a low point.
Walls and castle
See summary.
Trade and crafts
Iron smelting (Early Iron Age, and again from the thirteenth century).
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- Early thirteenth centuryIronworking resumes in the Bassar hills (start of the Later Iron Age in de Barros's sequence). Not an event of 1200 itself: it shows the direction.Depends on: Settlement and demand for iron in the Oti valley. Stopped by: Nothing in play.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Radiocarbon-dated archaeology (de Barros and others 2020).
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.