This summer, a Cuban mission conducted an archaeological investigation at colonial coffee houses of Matheux. Composed of Ms. Lopez Segrera Yaumara and Ms. Lourdes Aguilera Rizo and accompanied by architect Achille Dwolling of Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National ISPAN). The mission investigated during five days at Matheux, specifically in the section communal of Délices where ISPAN has recently located a large collection of coffee houses ruins dating from the late eighteenth century. About 18 alleged ruins of coffee houses were located on aerial photography and geo. Seven of them have already been visited by technicians of ISPAN. These ruins have as characteristics to have for most slave dwellings built into hard.

Délices mission has focused primarily on four groups of ruins: Housing Sabourin, Dion, Latour and Housing Lassaline all located almost in thread on the crest of the chain of Matheux overlooking the Artibonite valley at La Chapelle (Artibonite Department). As part of this mission, the first surveys of specific architectural ruins were made. The mission also carried out to identify components of these ruins and their typological characterization.

Learn more about Ms. Lopez Segrera:

Ms. Lopez Segrera have a degree in art history at the University of Oriente, Cuba, where she presented her thesis in 1998. Since March 2003, she directs the Archaeology section of the Office of the Registrar of the City of Santiago de Cuba. Ms. Lopez Segrera is also responsible for the work team of the Management Plan Integrated Archaeological Landscape of the First coffee plantations of southwestern Cuba. She is a member of the International Association for Caribbean Archaeology. Mrs. It is not a newcomer in Haiti in 2004, she realized, on behalf of the Foundation for Sustainable Development and Integrated Marmalade (Développement Durable et Intégré de Marmelade FONDDIM) and ISPAN, the first identification of the ruins of the coffee house of Beaucher (Marmalade), accompanied by archaeological observations. It contributed to a better understanding of the site.

About Ms. Lourdes Rizo Aguilera

Ms. Lourdes Aguilera Rizo is also a graduate architect at the conservator at the University of Oriente Santiago de Cuba in 1984 and the Centre for Restoration and Museology (CENCREM) of Havana. Specialist in Franco-Haitian coffee houses of the nineteenth century of the Oriente region of Cuba, she directed the restoration of the coffee house of the Fraternity, a listed World Heritage Site in 1999.

HL / ISPAN / HaitiLibre