Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation

Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation is the most notable industrial venture in meerschaum pipemaking established outside Eskişehir. The company's starting point was a meerschaum deposit found very close to the surface around Kilimanjaro; pipe literature places its founding in 1955 and its founders in Nairobi.

Tanganyika in the name is the old name of today's Tanzania: the country gained independence in 1961, and in 1964 united with Zanzibar to take the name Tanzania. Even so, the old name continued to be used in trade for a long time, appearing in British catalogues as late as the mid-1970s.

African Meerschaum and the Sinya Mine

The raw material comes from the Amboseli basin, stretching along the western foot of Kilimanjaro. Known in the geological literature as the Sinya Beds, the formation consists of carbonate rocks and magnesium-rich clays deposited in a semi-arid lake basin; sepiolite, the mineral equivalent of meerschaum, also forms within these clays, in the voids and veins of the beds. The deposits spread across both sides of the Tanzania-Kenya border. The company's long-running principal operation, the Sinya mine, is located in the Arusha region, Longido district, of Tanzania.

The stone found here differs markedly from stone mined in Eskişehir: it has low porosity and high hardness, and its cost also fell below that of Anatolian stone. These properties made it well suited to mass production rather than delicate figurative carving. Indeed, African stone appears not in showpiece carved pieces but in plainly formed pipes made for everyday use; the surfaces are usually finished stained in shades of black, brown and yellow.