Fonderie de Beit Chabab

The Naffah family has cast bells in Beit Chabab since around 1700 — the last bell foundry of the Levant. Church bells from this workshop ring from Mount Lebanon to Latin America; the small hand bells and door bells on made-ly are cast from the same bronze, in the same sand moulds.

Casting day is still a village event: the furnace roars, the bronze pours at a thousand degrees, and nobody breathes until the mould is struck. A bell that sings true is tuned by ear, by a man whose father tuned them the same way.