Attracted Metal-Hungry Europeans Who Instead Got a Faraway Place
Tales of Timbuktu’s fabulous wealth are one of the reasons metal-hungry Europeans came searching the west coast of Africa for riches. Among the most famous descriptions of Timbuktu are those of the Spanish explorer Leo Africanus and the captured African merchant Shabeni, although the more truthful aspects of Africanus’ descriptions were largely ignored.
Well before the Europeans arrived, Timbuktu had declined economically. When European travelers didn’t find the gold they were looking for and instead found how difficult it was to get there, the city’s reputation shifted from being fabled because of its gold to being fabled because of its location and mystery. Being used in this sense since at least 1863, English dictionaries now cite Timbuktu as a metaphor for any faraway place.
Recognized as a World Heritage Site
In December 1988, the World Heritage Committee (WHC) selected parts of Timbuktu’s historic center for inscription on its World Heritage list. Three mosques and 16 mausoleums or cemeteries were selected for World Heritage status.
With inclusion came the call for protection of the buildings’ conditions, an exclusion of new construction works near the sites and measures against the encroaching sand.
Shortly afterwards, the monuments were placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger by the Malian government, which lasted from 1990 until 2005, when restoration work, compilation of an inventory and other measures warranted “its removal from the Danger List.”
In 2008, the WHC placed the protected area under increased scrutiny, dubbed “reinforced monitoring,” to access the impact of planned construction work. The designation was removed a year later after concerns were addressed.
Following the takeover of Timbuktu by Tuareg militants MNLA and the Islamist group Ansar Dine and the destruction of some of the city’s monuments and tombs, the site was returned to the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2012.
