Johannes Leo Africanus' Contributions to the History of Timbuktu

Title page of A Geographical Historie of Africa by

Johannes Leo Africanus (1600)

Johannes Leo Africanus (c. 1494 - 1554) was a Moorish diplomat, traveler, historian, and writer best known for his book Description of Africa (Descrittione dell’Africa) which described North African geography, including the famed city of Timbuktu (Timbuctoo) in Mali, West Africa.

In about 1494, Leo Africanus was born in Granada, a city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. This was a major city on the Spanish (Iberian) peninsula. It had been conquered by the Moors of Africa for nearly 800 years. After Leo Africanus' birth, his family moved from Spain to Fez, Morocco in North Africa. In Morocco, he studied at the University of Al Karaouines and started the intellectual journey that would lead him on diplomatic missions across Africa and Europe. This included the Maghreb (Also Maghrib, Berber: Tamazgha, Arabic: بلدان المغرب ,) and the Timbuktu region (c. 1510), then part of the Songhai (Songhay) Empire.

Fifteen kilometers north of the Niger River, Timbuktu is a historic city whose very name conjures a sense of mystery. Known as the City of Wisdom, the legacy of the muslim king Mansa Musa and the recorded history of the Songhai and Mali Empires are part of Timbuktu's rich historical heritage.

The Kingdom of Mali

By the 11th Century, Mali's rulers had been converted to Islam in the West African region of Timbuktu, a city in the Tombouctou Region of Mali. Three centuries later, commentators note from Arab travelers that the religion of Islam practiced in this region of Africa is somewhat Africanized from that practiced by their Arabian brethren. Mansa Musa was known in his time as the richest king in Africa because of the wealth he acquired in his Empire's wide network of commercial trade.

Untitled woodcut map of Africa from Leo Africanus,

Historiale description de l'Afrique, tierce partie dv monde

Section of an illustrated map that includes depiction of 

Mansa Musa holding a golden nugget, (cir. 1375 Catalan Atlas)

The earliest full account of Timbuktu came from Africanus in the 16th Century. He described the city's splendent court life, its scholars, noted as "bountifully maintained at the king's cost." Timbuktu had a reputation for its learned universities, pomp royal palace ceremonies, architectural glories, and busy markets that included international traders.

Once a central center of Islamic teaching in Africa, Timbuktu’s architectural glories, including many mosques, have been reclaimed in part by the desert. By 1828, French adventurer René Caillié's pilgrimage to Timbuktu found the city ravished by the raids of neighboring tribes. Populated by the Fulani, Mande, Songhai, and Tuareg, the people and the historical romance of scholarship and trade within Timbuktu remains.

Video of lost libraries of Timbuktu - City of Scholars (BBC)

Seydou Keïta and the Genuis of Photography

Photo of the late photographer Seydou Keïta

Seydou Keïta was born in Bamako, Mali, Africa in 1921 (exact date unknown) and died November 21, 2001 in Paris, France. Keïta was the eldest child in a family of five children. His father, Bâ Tièkòró, and his uncle, Tièmòkò, were Malian furniture makers. Upon a return from Senegal to Mali in 1935, his uncle Tièmòkò is reported to have given Keïta a Kodak Brownie camera with film. Mountaga Traoré and French photographic supply store owner Pierre Garnier were among his biggest supporter as he honed his photography skills.



Seydou Keita: Photographs, Bamako, Mali 1949-1970 (Book available at this Amazon.com link)

Seydou Keïta Photography Studio in Bamako, Mali

In 1948, Keïta set up his first studio in the family house in Bamako-Koura, behind the main prison.

This self-taught photographer captured the heart of Malian society through his exquisite photo-
graphic record of the people between 1940 and the 1960.

"Seydou Keita was the place to go if you wanted to have a beautiful image of yourself. That was the

studio to go for the local bourgeoisie and even for the middle class who wanted to grow in the social

level," states gallery curator N'Gone Fall in a BBC report. Keïta's work was nationally reknown
among the Malians and subsequently became world reknown as the prolific photographer's
photographs began to be collected in Europe and the U.S. by museums and galleries.