Inhabited Beauty

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For photos of beautiful, still-inhabited locales! It can be a quick snapshot of your local town, a breathtaking pro photo of a city, or a pic of some fascinating piece of modern life.

The only real rule is that it must be an actively inhabited/used location (ie not ruins or natural locales). Otherwise, go wild. Anything that you find beautiful or interesting!

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PugJesus@lemmy.world

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Archivist Abdel Kader Haidara with preserved Medieval African manuscripts, Timbuktu, Mali (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/inhabitedbeauty@lemmy.world

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[–] groet 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This man is an absolute hero. Timbuktu was the cultural capital of west Afrika during the middle ages and housed many scholars and writers.

Its similar to a "library of Alexandria" type of collection of knowledge. Only that the manuscripts were spread over many families instead of a single location.

In 2012 during malis civil war, Al-Qaeda captured Timbuktu and started burning manuscripts. Dr. Haidara as curator of one of Timbuktus most important libraries organised the evacuation of the manuscripts by distributing then to civilians who would smuggle them out disguised as personal belongings.

4200 books burned.

350000 saved!

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Many of them did (and still do) lack copies or scans, or translations. Each one saved is a priceless treasure; each one lost is irreplaceable. Man gave to future generations an incredible inheritance by his efforts.