Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Straughn, Ian

Titel

Flecks of Timbuktu on the Skin: Excavating the Unbound Aspects of a Manuscript Collection

Ist Teil von

• Timbuktu Unbound, 2023, p.133-153

Ort / Verlag

Cham: Springer International Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This essay discusses some aspects of a project undertaken by the author to digitize a representative sample of materials from the Infa Yattara Family Library (IFYL) and contribute to the organization and accessibility of the library’s manuscripts through identifying and enhanced cataloging of the manuscripts. The IYFL houses a private collection from Timbuktu, but which has recently been relocated and re-established for its safety in the Malian capital of Bamako. This article draws parallels between this research and the author’s background conducting archaeological field work. Specifically, it examines how the concept of taphonomy—the natural and cultural processes by which the archaeological record is formed—can serve as a theoretical hinge for a productive reframing of methodological approaches and the broader compulsion towards preservation that is so central to heritage discourses and practices. By documenting a set of moments that push against the impulse to arrest the taphonomic and even reverse its impacts, this paper demonstrates the potential for embracing deterioration and loss in how scholars—librarians, conservators, curators and archaeologists alike—aspire to resurface both the textual and archaeological records and the social practices they materialize.