History of Timbuktu
Although the accumulation of thick layers of sand has thwarted archaeological excavations in the town itself,[2][3] some of the surrounding landscape is deflating and exposing pottery shards on the surface.
A survey of the area by Susan and Roderick McIntosh in 1984 identified several Iron Age sites along the el-Ahmar, an ancient wadi system that passes a few kilometers to the east of the modern town.
[4] An Iron Age tell complex located 9 kilometres (6 miles) southeast of the Timbuktu near the Wadi el-Ahmar was excavated between 2008 and 2010 by archaeologists from Yale University and the Mission Culturelle de Tombouctou.
[7] The first was carried out in 19 BC by the politician Lucius Cornelius Balbus, along with a small group of legionaries, and another repeated in 70 AD by the commander of Legio III Augusta, named Festus.
[10] The first mention is by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited both Timbuktu and Kabara in 1353 when returning from a stay in the capital of the Mali Empire.
Information after this date is provided by the Tadhkirat al-Nisyan (A Reminder to the Obvious),[17][18] an anonymous biographical dictionary of the Moroccan rulers of Timbuktu written in around 1750.
[21] Al-Sadi saw Maghsharan Tuareg as the founders, as their summer encampment grew from temporary settlement to depot to travellers' meeting place.
[23] Monroe asserts, based on archaeological evidence, that Timbuktu emerged from an urban-rural dynamic, that is, aiming to provide services to its immediate rural hinterland.
[25] Muslim scholars from Walata (beginning to replace Aoudaghost as trade route terminus) fled to Timbuktu and solidified the position of Islam,[26] a religion that had gradually spread throughout West Africa, mainly through commercial contacts.
[35] With the power of the Mali Empire waning in the first half of the 15th century, Timbuktu became relatively autonomous, although Maghsharan Tuareg had a dominating position.
They were sent by the Saadi ruler of Morocco, Ahmad I al-Mansur, and were led by the Spanish Muslim Judar Pasha in search of gold mines.
[46] While initially controlling the Morocco – Timbuktu trade routes, Morocco soon cut its ties with the Arma and the grip of the numerous subsequent pashas on the city began losing its strength: Tuareg temporarily took over control in 1737 and the remainder of the 18th century saw various Tuareg tribes, Bambara and Kounta briefly occupy or besiege the city.
Sources conflict on who was in control when the French arrived: Elias N. Saad in 1983 suggests the Soninke Wangara,[47] a 1924 article in the Journal of the Royal African Society mentions the Tuareg,[49] while Africanist John Hunwick does not determine one ruler, but notes several states competing for power 'in a shadowy way' until 1893.
[50] Historic descriptions of the city had been around since Leo Africanus's account in the first half of the 16th century,[51] and they prompted several European individuals and organizations to make great efforts to discover Timbuktu and its fabled riches.
The earliest of their sponsored explorers was a young Scottish adventurer named Mungo Park, who made two trips in search of the Niger River and Timbuktu (departing first in 1795 and then in 1805).
After being freed by the British consul in Tangier and going to Europe, he gave an account of his experience, potentially making him the first Westerner for hundreds of years to have reached the city and returned to tell about it.
[58] After the scramble for Africa had been formalized in the Berlin Conference, land between the 14th meridian west and Miltou, South-West Chad, became French territory, bounded in the south by a line running from Say, Niger to Baroua.
On 15 December 1893, the city, by then long past its prime, was annexed by a small group of French soldiers, led by Lieutenant Gaston Boiteux.
[52] In October 1941 the Vichy French authorities transferred a group of interned British Merchant Navy seafarers from Conakry to Timbuktu.
The men had been a scratch crew taking a captured French cargo ship, SS Criton, from Freetown to try to reach Britain.
[66] Following increasing frustration within the armed forces over the Malian government's ineffective strategies to suppress a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali, a military coup on 21 March 2012 overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré and overturned the 1992 constitution.
[67] The Tuareg rebels of the MNLA and Ansar Dine took advantage of the confusion to make swift gains, and on 1 April 2012, Timbuktu was captured from the Malian military.
[68] On 3 April 2012, the BBC News reported that the Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine had started implementing its version of sharia in Timbuktu.
[69] That day, ag Ghaly gave a radio interview in Timbuktu announcing that Sharia law would be enforced in the city, including the veiling of women, the stoning of adulterers, and the punitive mutilation of thieves.
[70] The MNLA declared the independence of Azawad, containing Timbuktu, from Mali on 6 April 2012,[71] but was rapidly pushed aside by Islamist movements Ansar Dine and AQMI who installed sharia in the city and destroyed some of the burial chambers.
One member, a former army officer, stated that the proclaimer 'Patriots' Resistance Movement for the Liberation of Timbuktu' opposed the secession of northern Mali.
[73] Five days later, French President François Hollande accompanied by his Malian counterpart Dioncounda Traoré visited the city before heading to Bamako and were welcomed by an ecstatic population.
