Today’s presentation was given by Roger Hamilton whose talk was entitled “The Timbuktu Manuscripts and this presentation was followed by the AGM, details and photos can be seen by clicking on this link.
Photo by Tony Taft
Our Speaker Finder Paul Young writes:-
This talk covered a subject that the overwhelming majority of us know little or nothing about.
Timbuktu is a city of 50,000 people in Mali. It has been located on an east/west trading route for at least a 1000 years as well as being a seat of great learning.
The manuscript’s represent the accumulated knowledge and learning of countless numbers of academics over many years and have been cared for in Timbuktu. However, the safe keeping of the manuscripts has been threatened in many ways over time. Most recently by terrorist groups in this part of Africa.
This was a rather “dry” subject (read comment by Websec below) but also one which made us realise that great academic thinking did not only exist in Western Europe but also in some relatively unknown areas of Africa.
Comment by Websec:- I personally found today’s subject difficult to follow and I wouldn’t have known where to start this report if it had been left to write it.
At the AGM following this morning’s talk I was complimented on the work I do in running this website. I hope everyone will realise that so much of the credit for these reports should go to Paul for his insightful comments on all our weekly talks.
Credit must also go to Tony Taft for all his wonderful photographs throughout the website.
Paignton Probus Club 