South Africa leads project to preserve the cultural treasures of Timbuktu

An African cultural renaissance is growing on the edge of the Sahara desert, in the fabled Malian city of Timbuktu, where a South African-led project is building an ultra-modern new underground library to preserve thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts that show the depth of African learning at a time when Europe was only emerging from its Dark Ages. South African businesses and the public contributed funds to build the new Ahmed Baba Centre near Timbuktu’s historic Sankore mosque or masajid, one of three mosques at the centre of the 12th century University of Timbuktu which attracted 25,000 students from all over Africa. Timbuktu was named a World Heritage Site in 1998.

The manuscripts, written in Arabic script and finely illuminated, deal with history, religion, mathematics, law, grammar, medicine, arts, culture and philosophy and show Africa’s pre-colonial tradition of written academic excellence. The Ahmed Baba Institute, tasked in 1967 with collating the manuscripts following a United Nations conference, holds 23,000 of the 100,000 manuscripts that survived centuries of Moroccan occupation and French colonialism. The rest are in private libraries in Mali and private collections in Spain, France and Morocco.

The South Africa-Mali Timbuktu Project began with South African president Thabo Mbeki’s 2001 visit to Mali and the institute, which had been built in 1970. Mbeki pledged South Africa's support to conserve the manuscripts and build a new library. "Clearly, we cannot allow such a critical part of African history to die, because such a death would mean erasing an important link to our glorious past," he said. The project also received support from the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which encourages collaboration between governments, state institutions and the private sector.

Strategic direction for the SA-Mali Project came from a high-level ministerial team led by the South African Department of Arts and Culture. While the Timbuktu Manuscripts Trust was raising the $5.6 million needed for the new building,  the department trained 12 Malian conservators and helped repair and conserve manuscripts with aid from the South African National Archives and National Library. The three year training program, which began in 2003, focused on preventive conservation, basic conservation repairs, and paper conservation, rare book designs, leather repair, and exhibition mounting. South African experts went to Mali to advise families who own some of the more than 100,000 manuscripts kept in private libraries or owned by families.

South African academics were encouraged to visit Timbuktu to promote formal study of the ancient manuscripts, inspired by a 2005 display in Johannesburg that marked the start of the Trust's public fundraising. It was the first time the manuscripts had left the institute. The 16 documents displayed included a biography of the Prophet Muhammad and treatises on music, astronomy, physics and traditional pharmacy. "We wanted to show that contrary to what people sometimes think, the manuscripts do not all deal with Islam," said institute director Mohamed Gallah Dicko.

This story was compiled from a variety of sources, including the South Africa-Mali Timbuktu project site; an Oct. 14, 2005 Al Jazeera story entitled Timbuktu manuscripts go on display; information on a tv special by SABC News entitled “From Here to Timbuktu” ; and various ministerial speeches. You can read about the project in the Christian Science Monitor as well.  For more information about the Timbuktu manuscripts and libraries, see the Timbuktu Educational Foundation and the Libraries of Timbuktu.

 


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