Photo: Evgeni Zotov
UNESCO: Founded in the 11th and 12th centuries to serve the caravans crossing the Sahara, these trading and religious centres became focal points of Islamic culture. They have managed to preserve an urban fabric that evolved between the 12th and 16th centuries. Typically, houses with patios crowd along narrow streets around a mosque with a square minaret. They illustrate a traditional way of life centred on the nomadic culture of the people of the western Sahara.
Wikipedia: Chinguetti is a ksar or a Berber medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar.
“There’s another, largely forgotten ancient desert library in neighbouring Mauritania, in the ghost town of Chinguetti.” tweets @incunabula
The desert libraries of Timbuktu are well known, and have been the subject of global concern. Almost all the manuscripts have now been removed to Bamako. But there's another, largely forgotten ancient desert library in neighbouring Mauritania, in the ghost town of Chinguetti. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/9giM6OoyHy
— Incunabula (@incunabula) July 31, 2019
UNESCO
Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata
Headlines
Mauritania’s hidden manuscripts – Guardian
Smithsonian
Atlasobscura
messynessychic.com
Elsewhere on the Web
TripAdvisor
Flickr
The Book and the Sand: Restoring and Preserving the Ancient Desert Libraries of Mauritania
Embedded Tweets
Chinguetti is located at the end of a 600km road from Nouakchott, right at the edge of the trackless and almost uninhabited Sahara. The even smaller and more remote town to the north-east of Chinguetti, Ouadane, also has ancient libraries, about which I hope to write more later. pic.twitter.com/EQCQ95l6IN
— Incunabula (@incunabula) August 2, 2019
Wikipedia
Chinguetti
Planeta.com