From the historian's notes

Timbuktu, 1450

Mali · Sub-Saharan Africa · January 1450 · winter (dry)

What it was high

a trading and scholarly town where the Sahara meets the Niger, its port a few miles away at Kabaraas a seasonal camp around 1100, growing into a trading town

That year

• Scholarship and the book trade: manuscripts copied and sold, students gathering around teachers at the mosques ongoing higha city that trades in paper
• Salt slabs from the Taghaza mines arrive by camel and leave by boat for the south; gold comes north the dry season highthe trade that built the town
• Under Tuareg rule the scholars keep much of their independence 1433–1468 mediuma learned town in a nomad's hand

Who held it high

Tuareg overlords, who took the town from the Mali empire in 1433the Tuareg chief Akil; day-to-day the town is run by its judge and its scholar familiesMali's power has withdrawn; the Songhay will take the town in 1468

Its name medium

TumbutuWritten in Arabic script, for Arabic and increasingly for local languages

The date, there high

around 853–854 AHthe Hijri calendarThe five daily calls to prayer divide the day.

Money medium

cowrie shells, gold dust and saltcowries for small purchasesa handful of cowries buys food in the market

Weather medium

January: dry and cool at night, warm by day; the harmattan wind carries fine dust

Things

Objectsslabs of rock salt; manuscripts in leather covers; gold dust weighed on small scales; cowrie shellsFoodmillet and rice; dates; fish from the Niger; milkClothindigo-dyed cotton; imported cloth from North Africa; Tuareg veilsGetting aboutcamel caravans; boats on the Niger; donkeysIn the airdust on the wind; wood smoke; dried fish

What she'd hear

Songhay in the streets, Tamasheq among the Tuareg, Arabic in the books and the mosques, Mande among the traders from the south.

Where she could stand

• the Djinguereber mosque — the great mud-brick mosque built in the 1320s
• the market — salt slabs, cloth, books and gold dust
• Kabara on the Niger — the river port where the salt goes onto boats
• a scholar's house — a courtyard house where manuscripts are copied

Researched for this card · confidence medium