Timbuktu

Timbuktu (Mali, West Africa)  was established by the nomadic Tuareg perhaps as early as the 10th century.

According to the legend its name is made up of: tin which means “place” and buktu, the name of an old Malian woman known for her honesty and who once upon a time lived in the region. Tuareg and other travellers would entrust this woman with any belongings for which they had no use on their return trip to the north.
Thus, when a Tuareg, upon returning to his home, was asked where he had left his belongings, he would answer: “I left them at Tin Buktu “, meaning the place where dame Buktu lived. The two terms ended up fusing into one word, thus giving the city the name of Tinbuktu which later became Timbuktu.

Timbuktu grew to great wealth because of its key role in trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory, slaves, salt and other goods by the Tuareg, Mandé and Fulani merchants, transferring goods from caravans coming from the Islamic north to boats on the Niger.

It became a key city in several successive empires: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire from 1324, and the Songhai Empire from 1468, the second occupations beginning when the empires overthrew Tuareg leaders who had regained control.

During the early 15th century, a number of Islamic institutions were erected. The most famous of these is the Sankore mosque, also known as the University of Sankore,  which soon became the centre of the Islamic scholarly community in Timbuktu.

The collection of ancient manuscripts at the University of Sankore and other sites around Timbuktu document the magnificence of the institution, as well as the city itself, while enabling scholars to reconstruct the past in fairly intimate detail.

Dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, these manuscripts cover every aspect of human endeavour and are indicative of the high level of civilization attained by West Africans at the time.

At one time there were 120 libraries with manuscripts in Timbuktu and surrounding areas. There are more than one million objects preserved in Mali with an additional 20 million in other parts of Africa, the largest concentration of which is in Sokoto, Nigeria, although the full extent of the manuscripts is unknown.

During the colonial era efforts were made to conceal the documents after a number of entire libraries were taken to Paris, London and other parts of Europe. Some manuscripts were buried underground, while others were hidden in the desert or in caves. Many are still hidden today.

The city began to decline after explorers and slavers from Portugal and then other European countries landed in West Africa, providing an alternative to the slave market of Timbuktu and the trade route through the world’s largest desert.

In 1824, the Paris-based Société de Géographie offered a 10,000 franc prize to the first non-Muslim to reach the town and return with information about it.

The Scot Gordon Laing arrived in September 1826 but was killed shortly after by local Muslims who were fearful of European discovery and intervention. The Frenchman René Caillé arrived in 1828 travelling alone disguised as Muslim; he was able to safely return and claim the prize.  (Wikipedia, Unesco, BBC)