Lebanon · Sacred / Ritual / Religious Craft Objects

Beit Chabab Naffah Bronze Church Bell Casting

Sinaet l-jras (bell-making, per iHeritage's Arabic-transliterated project title)

The casting of bronze church bells and chimes in Beit Chabab, a Metn-region mountain village, home to the only bell foundry remaining in Lebanon and directly documented as the last such foundry in the entire Middle East. The craft's specific family lineage carries a genuinely remarkable naming origin: in the early 1700s, a local blacksmith named Youssef Ghobril apprenticed under Russian bell-makers (in one account, a Russian priest known as Al Mascopi) who had settled in Beit Chabab; when Youssef completed his first bell, the villagers were so impressed that they exclaimed 'Youssef nafaa' ('Youssef is useful' or 'accomplished'), and the name Naffah was born, subsequently carried by the family through every generation since. Maronite Christians, like most Eastern churches, historically used wooden gongs to call the faithful to prayer before adopting bells in the early twelfth century, a technology some accounts trace to the Crusaders' arrival in the Levant; Beit Chabab's own bell-founding history may extend as far back as this Crusader-era period, though the Naffah family's specifically documented, verified lineage begins in the early eighteenth century. Between 1700 and 1900, ten separate bell workshops operated in Beit Chabab, with the industry exclusively controlled by the Naffah family, who guarded their casting secrets closely, reportedly forbidding members from divulging the technique especially when marrying outside the family; the Great Famine of 1915-1918 killed or displaced many craftsmen, reducing the industry to just two workshops by 1940. Today only Naffah Naffah remains, single-handedly continuing the family tradition inherited from his father over some 27 years of practice, working from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and producing approximately 30 to 35 bells per year despite rising demand; his brother chose the priesthood instead, leaving Naffah as the sole active craftsman, though his own son, Charbel, has already begun training to continue the lineage. The casting process begins with creating four or five molds simultaneously from a mixture of mud, straw, and goat hair, mixed by the stomping of feet, a process taking around 40 days to prepare and set; a bronze alloy, documented as approximately 78 percent copper and 22 percent tin, is then melted at a temperature cited as 1000 to 1200 degrees Celsius across different sources. Before pouring the molten metal, Naffah directly blesses the bell and prays that no mistakes will occur, since an error destroys the full 40 days of preparatory work; the molten alloy is retrieved from the furnace with a ladle, by hand or with a hoist, and poured into the mold. Roughly two hours later, once cooled, the mold is destroyed to reveal the finished bronze bell, weighing between 60 and 250 kilograms according to some sources or as much as half a ton according to others, engraved with the 'Naffah et fils' trademark before being transformed into a finished piece ready to adorn a church steeple. Finished bells, priced between roughly $5,000 and $10,000 (with smaller bells costing more per unit than larger ones), are sold primarily to Christian communities across Lebanon and neighboring Arab countries -- Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine -- as well as to Lebanese diaspora communities in France, Australia, Canada, and the United States. This family history is formally documented within the archives of the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.

Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not independently inscribed