Treasures Of Timbuktu - Mali

December 2008

Deep in the heart of Africa lies the fabled city of Timbuktu. Last year thousands of ancient manuscripts were unearthed here. But these priceless books are deteriorating due to lack of support from the West.

Timbuktu was once the largest and most powerful empire in Africa, celebrated across the world for its wealth, culture and art. We have known the art of writing since the 11th century, says African historian Salem Ould Elhadsj. We started writing before most European countries. For Westerners however, Timbuktu is a semi-fictional land located in the back of beyond. Tackling Western ignorance is no simple task. The manuscripts prove we are a most important city, says Salem, but the rest of the world does not even know where we are. Will the West wake up to one of Africas greatest treasures in time?

Produced by SBS/Dateline
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

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[FreshD2008]

Arab as in culture, not nationality.

[NobleSkeptic]

Arab? The Moors were negroes.

[TutankhAusar]

@BlackmatterX Read mbukukanyau's comment and maybe you'll see where I'm coming from.

[touregman1]

يحول بعض من الزنوج والغربيين وبعض من الجرانينا العرب بشراء كتابت تاريخنا وجدودنا بالمال لك يطمس هويتنا االاسلامية ولامازيغية في الصحراء الكبراء...........في هذه الفديو

[BlackmatterX]

@TutankhAusar Why should the black man lynch himself when it is non-blacks who are hybrid descendants of his Norman perfect gene called ALBINOS who suffer from albinism and were biblical lepers. You should thank the black man. He is the reason you genetic mutants have the "tiny bit" melanin which gets its blackness from Carbon, the building blocks of life. ALL living beings need carbon, which you lack.

[BlackmatterX]

@dogons2k12 Eurocentrists main job is to denationalize black Africans AROUND THE WORLD. Divide and Conquer.

[ureallysuckglobes]

@xekul I don't think the people in Mali (or anywhere in West Africa) would do that. You'd be more likely to run into such violence and barbarity in certain spots in the Middle East.

[arivas713]

this is cool stuff. Africa has a unique history of it's own, arguably influenced by Islam but not anymore than Northern Europe is influenced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. It's cool to see that this did not go the way of the dodo, if Africa would have any chance to re-find it's past greatness, it is only through re-discovering it's past and trying to revive it's this culture--not some faux-european derived culture. i'm not African but i find this hella is cool.

[Ryukikon]

For any racist out there, African Language in its root has even been linked to the oldest Chinese lost and unused languages. In fact when they discovered the correlation it helped them to translate it and make sense of the cultures that existed there. Africans had a pretty unique and extensive writing and recording system well before even the 8th century. The problem is war and natural deterioration process. Look at how bad these books where and this was the desert.

[Swmn9]

@bussmove TRUE-

THE FACT MOST AFRICAN AND OTHER POST COLONIAL COUNTRIES HAD TO BUY THEIR INDEPENDENCE FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES WHICH CREATED "THIRD WORLD DEBT" IS RARELY BROADCAST.

[dogons2k12]

@TheThroneOfGenocide @HyperboreasGlacius @phoenician7

NOW if the ancient city of TIMBUCTU were already writing by the 10th CENTURY in as well as the EMPIRE of GHANA by the 8th CENTURY in the ORIGINAL SUDANI arabic SCRIPT. So wouldn't that mean that the MOORS who came from WESTERN SUDAN were from these WESTERN SUDANESE empires?!?!

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAH­HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA

euroCENTRIsts are amazing!!!