Medieval History
By Geoffrey York
The Globe and Mail
As rebels searched the bags of the truck passengers at a checkpoint near Timbuktu, one man was trying to hide his nervousness. Mohamed Diagayete, an owlish scholar with an eager smile, was silently praying that the rebels would not discover his laptop computer.
Buried in his laptop bag was an external hard drive with a cache of thousands of valuable images and documents from Timbuktu?s greatest cultural treasure: its ancient scholarly manuscripts.
Radical Islamist rebels in northern Mali have repeatedly attacked the fabled city?s heritage, taking pickaxes to the tombs of local saints and smashing down a door in a 15th century mosque. They demolished several more mausoleums this week and vowed to destroy the rest, despite strong protests from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency.
With the tombs demolished, Timbuktu?s most priceless remaining legacy is its vast libraries of crumbling Arabic and African manuscripts, written in ornate calligraphy over the past eight centuries, proof of a historic African intellectual tradition. Some experts consider them as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls ? and an implicit rebuke to the harsh narrow views of the Islamist radicals.
Click here to read this article from The Globe and Mail
See also: The Manuscripts of Timbuktu
- Bulk Of Timbuktu Manuscripts Survived Occupation Unharmed
The majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts appear to be safe and unharmed after the Saharan city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, experts said on Wednesday, rejecting some media reports of their widespread destruction. Denying...
- Israeli Library Unveils Medieval Manuscript Collection Discovered In Afghanistan
A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago. On Thursday Israel's...
- Islamist Fighters In Timbuktu Continue Destruction Of City?s Mausoleums, Heritage
Muslim extremists continued destroying the heritage of the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu on Monday, razing tombs and attacking the gate of a 600-year-old mosque, despite growing international outcry. The International Criminal Court has described the...
- Timbuktu: Mali's Treasure At Risk From Armed Uprising
For centuries, Timbuktu has existed in the Western imagination as a byword for the most exotic, far-flung place conceivable. Situated on the southern edge of the Sahara, it acquired a near-mythical status in distant countries for its fabled inaccessibility,...
- Our Own Orientalism: Why Medievalists Are Complicit When Manuscripts Burn And Ruins Crumble
(Modern Medieval is pleased to host this guest post by Prof. Rabia Gregory, University of Missouri-Columbia) ...
Medieval History
The secret race to save Timbuktu?s manuscripts
The Globe and Mail
As rebels searched the bags of the truck passengers at a checkpoint near Timbuktu, one man was trying to hide his nervousness. Mohamed Diagayete, an owlish scholar with an eager smile, was silently praying that the rebels would not discover his laptop computer.
Buried in his laptop bag was an external hard drive with a cache of thousands of valuable images and documents from Timbuktu?s greatest cultural treasure: its ancient scholarly manuscripts.
Radical Islamist rebels in northern Mali have repeatedly attacked the fabled city?s heritage, taking pickaxes to the tombs of local saints and smashing down a door in a 15th century mosque. They demolished several more mausoleums this week and vowed to destroy the rest, despite strong protests from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency.
With the tombs demolished, Timbuktu?s most priceless remaining legacy is its vast libraries of crumbling Arabic and African manuscripts, written in ornate calligraphy over the past eight centuries, proof of a historic African intellectual tradition. Some experts consider them as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls ? and an implicit rebuke to the harsh narrow views of the Islamist radicals.
Click here to read this article from The Globe and Mail
See also: The Manuscripts of Timbuktu
- Bulk Of Timbuktu Manuscripts Survived Occupation Unharmed
The majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts appear to be safe and unharmed after the Saharan city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, experts said on Wednesday, rejecting some media reports of their widespread destruction. Denying...
- Israeli Library Unveils Medieval Manuscript Collection Discovered In Afghanistan
A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago. On Thursday Israel's...
- Islamist Fighters In Timbuktu Continue Destruction Of City?s Mausoleums, Heritage
Muslim extremists continued destroying the heritage of the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu on Monday, razing tombs and attacking the gate of a 600-year-old mosque, despite growing international outcry. The International Criminal Court has described the...
- Timbuktu: Mali's Treasure At Risk From Armed Uprising
For centuries, Timbuktu has existed in the Western imagination as a byword for the most exotic, far-flung place conceivable. Situated on the southern edge of the Sahara, it acquired a near-mythical status in distant countries for its fabled inaccessibility,...
- Our Own Orientalism: Why Medievalists Are Complicit When Manuscripts Burn And Ruins Crumble
(Modern Medieval is pleased to host this guest post by Prof. Rabia Gregory, University of Missouri-Columbia) ...