Saving Africa's precious written heritage

Across Timbuktu, in cupboards, rusting chests, private collections and libraries, tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of manuscripts bear witness to this legendary city's remarkable intellectual history, and by extension, to Africa's much overlooked pre-colonial heritage.

Now a giant, new, state of the art library has landed - rather like a spaceship - in the dilapidated centre of Timbuktu, offering the best hope of preserving and analysing the town's literary treasures.

After several years of building and delays, the doors are finally about to open at the Ahmed Baba Institute's new home - a 200 million rand (£16,428,265) project paid for by the South African government.

When South Africa's former President, Thabo Mbeki, visited the town in 2001 he declared the documents to be among the continent's "most important cultural treasures", and promised to help conserve them as part of his vision of an "African renaissance".

Most of the manuscripts are in Arabic script, but contain many local languages.

They provide unique insights into Timbuktu's emergence as a trading post, and by the 1500s as a famous university town, full of students and scribes.