TIMBUKTU’S SECRET BOOKS THREATENED BY NEGLECT AND ILLEGAL EXPORT
Mali: the fabulous past of Africa
Timbuktu was for centuries a desert crossroads, a major centre for trading and for learning where thousands of manuscripts were written and stored. These are only now re-emerging to supply wonderful details of a forgotten golden age of Islamic history.
by Jean-Michel Djian
THE famously remote city of Timbuktu has been keeping a secret. In the past few years thousands of ancient manuscripts have been discovered there, mostly at the Sankore university-mosque, a major centre of intellectual life from the 12th to the 16th centuries. These documents are enormously (...)
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