New Hopes For Ancient Timbuktu

I've always been fascinated by Africa and her ancient kingdoms/civilizations. Especially Timbuktu:

Timbuktu Hopes Ancient Texts Spark a Revival

Ismaël Diadé Haïdara held a treasure in his slender fingers that has somehow endured through 11 generations — a square of battered leather enclosing a history of the two branches of his family, one side reaching back to the Visigoths in Spain and the other to the ancient origins of the Songhai emperors who ruled this city at its zenith.

"This is our family's story," he said, carefully leafing through the unbound pages. "It was written in 1519."

The musty collection of fragile, crumbling pages, written in the florid Arabic script of the sixteenth century, is also this once forgotten outpost's future.

[ tags: Timbuktu, Mali, Ancient Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa ]

Posted by ronn at August 6, 2007 10:07 PM