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October 09, 2006: The Buried Manuscript Treasures of Timbuktu
"As Haidara explained through e-mail, the manuscripts were buried by his grandparents and great-grandparents during the French colonial rule of Mali. During that time, he says, 'all African intellectuals hid their manuscripts.' The reason was simple: Colonialists were deporting thousands of the precious volumes to Europe. 'The ancient manuscripts of the El Hadj Oumar Tall Library are still in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris,' Haidara writes. "They are still there. And there are others in various European capitals.'"
