Libraries in the Sand Reveal Africa's Academic Past
By Nick Tattersall,  Reuters

TIMBUKTU, Mali (Nov. 10) - Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve  
tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written  
history at least as old as the European Renaissance.
Private and public  libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already 
collected 150,000  brittle manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, 
and local historians  believe many more lie buried under the sand.
The texts were stashed under mud  homes and in desert caves by proud Malian 
families whose successive generations  feared they would be stolen by Moroccan 
invaders, European explorers and then  French colonialists.
Written in ornate calligraphy, some were used to teach  astrology or 
mathematics, while others tell tales of social and business life in  Timbuktu during 
its "Golden Age," when it was a seat of learning in the 16th  century.
"These manuscripts are about all the fields of human knowledge: law,  the 
sciences, medicine," said Galla Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute,  a 
library housing 25,000 of the texts.
"Here is a political tract," he said,  pointing to a script in a glass 
cabinet, somewhat dog-eared and chewed by  termites. "A letter on good governance, a 
warning to intellectuals not to be  corrupted by the power of politicians."
Bookshelves on the wall behind him  contain a volume on maths and a guide to 
Andalusian music as well as love  stories and correspondence between traders 
plying the trans-Saharan caravan  routes.
Timbuktu's leading families have only recently started to give up  what they 
see as ancestral heirlooms. They are being persuaded by local  officials that 
the manuscripts should be part of the community's shared  culture.
"It is through these writings that we can really know our place in  history," 
said Abdramane Ben Essayouti, Imam of Timbuktu's oldest mosque,  
Djingarei-ber, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325.
HEAT, DUST AND  TERMITES
Experts believe the 150,000 texts collected so far are just a  fraction of 
what lies hidden under centuries of dust behind the ornate wooden  doors of 
Timbuktu's mud-brick homes.
"This is just 10 percent of what we  have. We think we have more than a 
million buried here," said Ali Ould Sidi, a  government official responsible for 
managing the town's World Heritage  Sites.
Some academics say the texts will force the West to accept Africa has  an 
intellectual history as old as its own. Others draw comparisons with the  
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
But as the fame of the manuscripts  spreads, conservationists fear those that 
have survived centuries of termites  and extreme heat will be sold to 
tourists at extortionate prices or illegally  trafficked out of the country.
South Africa is spearheading "Operation  Timbuktu" to protect the texts, 
funding a new library for the Ahmed Baba  Institute, named after a Timbuktu-born 
contemporary of William  Shakespeare.
The United States and Norway are helping with the preservation  of the 
manuscripts, which South African President Thabo Mbeki has said will  "restore the 
self respect, the pride, honor and dignity of the people of  Africa."
The people of Timbuktu, whose universities were attended by 25,000  scholars 
in the 16th century but whose languid pace of life has been left behind  by 
modernity, have similar hopes.
"The nations formed a single line and  Timbuktu was at the head. But one day, 
God did an about-turn and Timbuktu found  itself at the back," a local 
proverb goes.
"Perhaps one day God will do  another about-turn so that Timbuktu can retake 
its rightful place," it  adds.
 

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