Something more from Timbuktu...

[arthra]

"from here to Timbuktu"....

Timbuktu has meant to me something of an isolated anomaly and the middle of no where but this suggests it is more than I was led to believe...

Here's an interesting article about libraries in the sand in Timbuktu... that confirm it was a center of literacy and learning. The article says there may be a million texts waiting to be recovered:

TIMBUKTU, Mali (Reuters) - Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.

Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, and local historians believe many more lie buried under the sand.

Source:

Libraries in the sand reveal Africa's academic past - Yahoo! News