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Show Me The Mali: Timbooktoo

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  • Show Me The Mali: Timbooktoo

    Some good news out of Africa:



    In Timbuktu the race is on to preserve papers that document a west African golden age

    A hot wind stirred up the desert sand. Fida ag Muhammad, a wispy man with a blue-grey turban, hurried across the street. Reaching a mud-brick building, he quickly unlocked its corrugated iron door and pushed it open. A beam of soft early-morning light pierced the darkness. On a metal table covered with a red bath towel sat half a dozen leather-bound manuscripts. Carefully untying the string around a small weathered pouch, Mr Muhammad pulled back its flaps to reveal a sheaf of yellowed papers. Their edges had crumbled away, but the neat Arabic calligraphy was still clear.

    For an outsider, such a remarkable find might seem extraordinary. In Timbuktu and its surrounding villages like Ber, where Mr Muhammad lives, it is commonplace. After centuries of storage in wooden trunks, caves or boxes hidden beneath the sand, tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, covering topics as diverse as astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women's rights, are surfacing across the legendary Malian city.

    Their emergence has caused a stir among academics and researchers, who say they represent some of the earliest examples of written history in sub-Saharan Africa and are a window into a golden age of scholarship in west Africa. Some even believe that the fragile papers, which are now the focus of an African-led preservation effort, may reshape perceptions of the continent's past.

    "It has long been said that there was only oral history in this part of the world," said Salem Ould Elhadje, 67, a historian in Timbuktu. "But these manuscripts come from an African city, a city of black people."

    Books became hugely prized. Travellers from as far as the Middle East brought manuscripts to Timbuktu to sell. Using paper manufactured in Europe, scholars in the town produced their own original work, which was then copied by their pupils. Commercial transactions were recorded - slaves and ostrich feathers were among the goods traded - as were the pronouncements of learned men on everything from the environment to polygamy and witchcraft.

    "Every manuscript contains surprises," said Shahid Mathee, part of a University of Cape Town team studying the manuscripts. "We have even found texts where scholars offer advice on overcoming erection problems."

    With South African money, a £3.5m home for the Ahmed Baba Institute, featuring a museum, archive and rooms for scholars, is being built in the heart of the city, and will open next year. Meanwhile workers are trying to safeguard the institute's growing stock of 30,000 manuscripts.

    In a large room with fans whirring overhead, a team is building made-to-measure cardboard boxes for every manuscript that will provide protection from the dust. Fragile pages are being carefully affixed to special Japanese paper to stop them crumbling.

    Across the courtyard, researchers sit in front of computers documenting the contents of each manuscript. Then, with the help of computer scanners, ancient knowledge is uploaded into the 21st century. "We are creating a virtual library," said Muhammad Diagayete, 37, a researcher who was busy documenting a 1670 text on astronomy written in blue, red and black ink. "We want people all over the world to be able to access these manuscripts online."


    Private collections are also being restored. Outside interest, and funding, has helped to create more than 20 libraries in Timbuktu, from tiny collections with a few hundred documents to Ismael Haidara's Fondo Kati Bibliothèque, which has more than 7,000 leather-bound manuscripts dating back to 1198. Many were brought from Andalucia, Spain, by his ancestors, who came to Timbuktu in the 15th century.



    An audio slideshow:

    Attached Files
    Vive la liberte. Noor Inayat Khan, Dachau.

    ...patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. Edith Cavell, 1915

  • #2
    Promising stuff.

    What are theories surrounding the decline of the Malian civilisation?
    The genesis of the "evil Finn" concept- Evil, evil Finland

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    • #3
      I thought it was the discovery of a sea route to Benin that basically destroyed Mali.
      Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
        What are theories surrounding the decline of the Malian civilisation?
        I'd need to know more about the origins of Malian civilisation.
        THEY!!111 OMG WTF LOL LET DA NOMADS AND TEH S3D3NTARY PEOPLA BOTH MAEK BITER AXP3REINCES
        AND TEH GRAAT SINS OF THERE [DOCTRINAL] INOVATIONS BQU3ATH3D SMAL
        AND!!1!11!!! LOL JUST IN CAES A DISPUTANT CALS U 2 DISPUT3 ABOUT THEYRE CLAMES
        DO NOT THAN DISPUT3 ON THEM 3XCAPT BY WAY OF AN 3XTARNAL DISPUTA!!!!11!! WTF

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        • #5
          Interesting footnote: Mansa Musa died in 1337, thus making it clear to future generations that he is the one and only true elite leader
          <Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
          I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by chegitz guevara
            I thought it was the discovery of a sea route to Benin that basically destroyed Mali.

            Oooh, dems fighting words.


            I asserted that in a history forum once, and was pounced on with these two factoids - A. There continued to be considerable cross-Sahara trade after the Portugese arrived on the coast and B. Songhai, the last great Niger river state, was actually destroyed by an army from Morocco.


            Unfortunately I dont know the history of the area all that well, esp after the Moroccan victory. The counter to the above, I suppose, is that earlier Niger River states had collapsed, and had always been replaced by a new Niger River state. Absent the Euros on the coast, a new Niger state would have formed.

            Again, I dont know enough about the history of the cross-Sahara trade post 1600.

            I suspect the decline of the North African states and the Med muslim world post 1700, which resulted at least as much from the general "rise of the West" as from the Portugese advance on the West African coast, made a real revival of cross Sahara trade impossible.
            "A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber

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            • #7
              Mali got crunched by the French, IIRC.
              No matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
              "I played it [Civilization] for three months and then realised I hadn't done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD." Iain Banks, author

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              • #8
                Mali was replaced by the Songhai [who used to belong to the Malinese empire), after falling into disrepair after some bad management by their leadership. From what I can tell, Mali only ever existed as a major power because of excellent leadership; any time their leadership weakened, they went downhill unless someone stepped in to save them.

                The French didn't get involved until after the Songhai empire, and Morocco really was responsible for the destruction of that state.
                <Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
                I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.

                Comment


                • #9
                  The successor state to the Malian Empire (itself a successor to states such as ancient Ghana, which is not in modern day Ghana and Jenne-Jenno) Songhai, was destroyed by an army of adventurers and colonizers from Saadian Morocco.

                  They employed Turkish/Christian/Berber mercenaries and troops trained in fighting in the latest military tactics perfected in the wars between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs and Mamelukes and Safavids.

                  Lest it be thought that it was just another case of 'primitive' Africans being overwhelmed by technologically advanced non-Africans, the Moroccans also earlier defeated a European army at the Battle of the Three Kings, where Portugal's young king Sebastian died.

                  The Saadian Dynasty were thus responsible for the defeat of the kingdom of gold of Songhai and inadvertently, for the acquisition of Portugal and its empire by Philip II of Spain- which was not good news at all for Portugal, since the Dutch and English then began to prey on Portuguese shipping and colonies.


                  Undoubtedly the fall of Songhai showed the value of a small, highly trained, highly motivated military force over a greater number of peasant levies.

                  King Sebastian of Portugal:
                  Attached Files
                  Vive la liberte. Noor Inayat Khan, Dachau.

                  ...patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. Edith Cavell, 1915

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Sure that wasn't a chick?
                    DISCLAIMER: the author of the above written texts does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for any offence and insult; disrespect, arrogance and related forms of demeaning behaviour; discrimination based on race, gender, age, income class, body mass, living area, political voting-record, football fan-ship and musical preference; insensitivity towards material, emotional or spiritual distress; and attempted emotional or financial black-mailing, skirt-chasing or death-threats perceived by the reader of the said written texts.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Colon™
                      Sure that wasn't a chick?
                      He looks almost Habsburg, prognathous jaw-wise.

                      Let's leave it at 'human'... we're talking late Renaissance royalty here, after all.



                      More inbred than 'pedigree' show cats.

                      Of the many attributes identified with the Habsburg dynasty it is the hereditary over-grown jaw (mandibular prognathism) that captures the most attention.It is clearly visible in many of the increasing natural portraits of the family from the Renaissance and after, and also is seen on coinage of the period. (The coin of Leopold the “Hogmouth” shown above demonstrates the deformity.)
                      Attached Files
                      Vive la liberte. Noor Inayat Khan, Dachau.

                      ...patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. Edith Cavell, 1915

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                      • #12
                        Mali sucks
                        "I realise I hold the key to freedom,
                        I cannot let my life be ruled by threads" The Web Frogs
                        Middle East!

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