TARGET 160309

THE FORGOTTEN LIBRARIES

THE LOCATION



(Exerpt from Amusing Planet website ):
The ancient desert town of Chinguetti, in Mauritania, on the western edge of the Sahara, has changed little since it was founded more than twelve centuries ago. The houses are still built of reddish dry-stone and mud, with flat roofs made of timber panels from palm trees. The stone walls are punctured with tiny windows and hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many of these houses now lie in ruins, abandoned by their owners to escape the encroaching sand of the vast Sahara. Once a thriving metropolis of 200,000, Chinguetti now has only a few thousand residents left.


^{Chinguetti today}

Back when this was a thriving crossroads for several of the most active trade routes. Hundreds of camel caravans carrying rich cargo across the desert came and went daily. Residents acquired great wealth, and with it, precious possessions.

THE OBJECTS




The most prized possessions for these educated and prosperous families were the hand-written manuscripts of holy scriptures of the Muslim faith. The families who owned them did not hoard them as private possessions, though. They began opening the scriptures to everone by forming libraries. Then, Chinguetti also became a stopover for people making their pilgramage to Mecca. Because it had libraries of sacred books, by the early 11th Century, Chinguetti became a destination in its own rights for religious leaders from all over western Africa. The Muslim faith was also very interested in science, and the libraries of Chinguetti filled with books on astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and all the other branches of science and research of the day. As a result, it became the center for education and research. If you were an educated or religious person, it was the "must-go-to" place on the west African coast.

But human places, like human people, grow old and lose their energy. Over a few centuries, new trade routes and new centers of learning were established and Chinguetti's wealth and luster faded away. But even after the trade caravans stopped coming, even after the wealth was spent and gone, even after the other possessions were sold or old, the libraries remained as family responsibilities and service to their faith.



^{Family Librarians}

As late as 500 years ago, there were said to be 30 family libraries in Chinguetti. Today, there are only 5, each still run by members of the families who own them.



^{The Library Shelves}

The books, many of which are at least a thousand years old, sit in open cubby holes in family homes or family libraries. If it weren't for the extremely dry desert air, they would have all crumbled to dust centuries ago. And in fact.....




^{...most of them are showing their age pretty severly.}

The Mauritanian government has been trying to acquire these books for proper storage in museums, but the families are very serious about the responsibilities and books they have inherited. "Would you part with your hand or your foot? These books are a part of us," says Seif Islam, the manager of the local secondary school, who has 700 dusty volumes in his family's collection.

So, today, Chinguetti has become a Mecca of its own, but only for historians interested in the oldest texts and for technicians who are in the process of digitizing as many of the books as possible before they crumble into dust. It is estimated that there are 33,000 ancient texts in the country, but only a couple thousand have been properly cleaned and archived in the National Museum.



^{An ancient traveler's pocket Quaran}

But if you want to study these books, the libraries are still open to anyone interested. The librarians have learned that anyone touching the books must now wear protective gloves. And although they can't be checked out to take home, the books are readily available for reading. After all - they are library books.

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pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:

Amusing Planet
Messy Nessy Chic
Atlas Obscura
The Daily Beast