Posted on 08/03/2008 11:38:38 PM PDT by FreedomCalls
Fabled Timbuktu, once the site of the world's southernmost Islamic university, harbors thousands upon thousands of long-forgotten manuscripts. A dozen academic instutions from around the world are now working frantically to save and evaluate the crumbling documents.
Bundles of paper covered with ancient Arabic letters lie on tables and dusty leather stools. In the sweltering heat, a man wearing blue Muslim robes flips through a worn folio, while others are busy repairing yellowed pages.
An astonishing project is underway in Timbuktu, Mali, one of the world's poorest countries. On the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, experts are opening an enchanted Aladdin's Cave, filled with hundreds of thousands of ancient documents.
The Ahmed Baba Library alone contains more than 20,000 manuscripts, including works on herbal medicine and mathematics, yellowed volumes of poetry, music and Islamic law. Some are adorned with gilded letters, while others are written in the language of the Tuareg tribes. The contents remain a mystery.
Manuscript hunters are now scouring the environs of Timbuktu, descending into dark, clay basements and climbing up into attics. Twenty-four family-owned collections have already been discovered in the area. Most of the works stem from the late Middle Ages, when Timbuktu was an important crossroads for caravans. It was home to gold merchants and scholars, and it even boasted a university with 20,000 students. The old saying "the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu" summed up the ancient city's appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Timbuktu. Isn’t that on the way to Bum**** Egypt?
ping
Perhaps you are referring to that most undesirable location to find yourself in, West Butt-Cheek, Nairobi.
Back in the day when I did a bit of sailboat racing, and we made a bad tactical decision that worked to our great disadvantage, we alwyas wound up in West Butt-Cheek, Nairobi. It wasn’t where we wanted to be.
Timbuktu, Bum**** Egypt, West Butt-Cheek, Nairob, Outer Mongolia, ain’t none of those places fit for man or beast.
I doubt it. Tombouctou is strickly islamic, anything sacrilegious was/is/will be destroyed.
Out good friend Qadaffi is spending $ 800M to built a mosque there, allegedly his mother was from Timbuktu. His goal is to have that region break away from the rest of Mali.
I disagree, Outer Mongolia is a great place; pro-american, gorgeous women, friendly (hard-drinking) men, good hunting.
If you don’t mind the cold weather (50-60 below zero in winter) it is a place highly recommend to visit.
For a lonng time hardly anyone in Timbuktu has been able to read these documents. If you can't read it you can't find sacrilege.
Geeze! What’s next? Kalamazoo?
Thats not quite true; any person going to Timboktu, can see and read (if has knowledge of arabic or the squiggly writing) the manuscripts.
Unfortunately, any islamist that can’t understand the writing (and most of them can’t read) will consider it sacrilegious and will destroy it.
That's a mighty nice thing to do for Limbaugh. I didn't know that The Rush was into that old crumbling manuscripts stuff.
Plus for countless years they scared the heck out of the Chinese.
... and they still do; ChiCom do not allow Mongols to attend the olympic games.
Tim and I met the girls along the way
Since they were three and we were two
I bucked one and TIM-BUCKED-TWO
I just couldn’t resist.
Awesome, man!! :)
All sailors know of that marine-radar marketed as "Fugawi".
Timbuktu and back -— ping
Oh yeah, I remember that one .. every school child learned that right after George Washington and the cherry tree.
Moslems copied lot of Greco-Roman material but they probably destroyed even more. Hard to say what is down there.
Interesting. Of the groups that are “rushing” to preserve these manuscripts, how many are Islamic and how many are from the infidels?
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