Timbuktu Manuscripts

Timbuktu Manuscripts (or Tombouctou Manuscripts) is a blanket term for the large number of historically significant manuscripts that have been preserved for centuries in private households in Timbuktu, a city in northern Mali. The collections include manuscripts about art, medicine, philosophy, and science, as well as copies of the Quran.^[1]

The manuscripts are written in Arabic and several African languages, in the Ajami script; this includes, but is not limited to, Fula, Songhay, Tamasheq, Bambara, and Soninke.^[2] The dates of the manuscripts range between the late 13th and the early 20th centuries (i.e., from the Islamisation of the Mali Empire until the decline of traditional education in French Sudan).^[3] Their subject matter ranges from scholarly works to short letters.

After the decline of the Mali Empire, the manuscripts were kept in the homes of Timbuktu locals, before research and digitisation efforts began in the 20th and 21st century.

The manuscripts, and other cultural heritage in Mali, were imperilled during the Mali War. 4,203 of Timbuktu's manuscripts were burned or stolen following between 2012 and 2013. Some 350,000 manuscripts were transported to safety, and 300,000 of them were still in Bamako in 2022.^[4][5][6]