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Timbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold
Timbuktu―the name still evokes an exotic, faraway place even though its glory days are long gone. Unspooling its history and legends, resolving myth with reality, Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have captured the splendor and decay of one of mankind's treasures. Founded in the early 1100s by Tuareg nomads who called their camp "Tin Buktu," it became, within two centuries, a wealthy metropolis and a nexus of the trans-Saharan trade. Salt from the deep Sahara, gold from Ghana, and money from slave markets made it rich. In part because of its wealth, Timbuktu also became a center of Islamic learning and religion, boasting impressive schools and libraries that attracted scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, Mecca, and Marrakech. The arts flourished, and Timbuktu gained near-mythic stature around the world, capturing the imagination of outsiders and ultimately attracting the attention of hostile sovereigns who sacked the city three times and plundered it half a dozen more. The ancient city was invaded by a Moroccan army in 1600, which began its long decline; since then it has been seized by Tuareg nomads and a variety of jihadists, in addition to enduring a terrible earthquake, several epidemics, and numerous famines. Perhaps no other city in the world has been as golden―and as deeply tarnished―as Timbuktu. Using sources dating deep into Timbuktu's fabled past, alongside interviews with Tuareg nomads and city residents and officials today, de Villiers and Hirtle have produced a spectacular portrait that brings the city back to life.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
7 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Marq de Villiers
29 books16 followersBorn in South Africa, Marq de Villiers is a veteran Canadian journalist and the author of thirteen books on exploration, history, politics, and travel, including Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (winner of the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction). He has worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and through Eastern Europe and spent many years as editor and then publisher of Toronto Life magazine. More recently he was editorial director of WHERE Magazines International. He lives in Port Medway, Nova Scotia. [Penguin Canada]
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 19, 2025
I don’t get the low ratings. I thought it was a great overview of the history of Timbuktu and west Africa. One cannot talk about Timbuktu without talking about the historical west African Kingdoms and Empires. I learned a lot about the peoples, languages, trade goods and the different ethnic groups that all intertwined in that part of the world. It made Europe a cultural backwater.
I also really enjoyed that the author made a point a of visiting Timbuktu and the local geography to talk to the locals and to visit the sights to make it more human and real. The past and present was very evident and an interesting point of view. In addition, I liked how the author used several different sources and acknowledges contradictions from different people recording the same historical event.
I also really enjoyed that the author made a point a of visiting Timbuktu and the local geography to talk to the locals and to visit the sights to make it more human and real. The past and present was very evident and an interesting point of view. In addition, I liked how the author used several different sources and acknowledges contradictions from different people recording the same historical event.
July 3, 2009
I read Marq de Villiers' "Timbuktu" in a Deepest South summer: as hot as NW Mali, but dripping with Louisiana humidity rather than swept by hot desert winds. I did tell my friends that de Villiers' book was my escape into dry air, open spaces, and desert silence.
The book itself is both a travel memoir of Timbuktu in the early 2000s and a history of the rise of the decline of a city that gave its name to the phrase "going to Timbuktu"--- going to the exotic far edge of the world. De Villers contrasts the tumbledown dun-coloured city of 2005 with the golden city of legend and joins Tuareg and Bambara hosts to see half-repaired mosques and museums and the old caravansarais where caravans of salt and slaves (white gold, black gold) used to camp with thousands of camels. He watches lean, arrogant Tuaregs in their indigo veils swagger through the marketplaces, carrying broadswords but with mobile phones in the pockets of made-in-China robes...and he listens to scholars of an older, local, tolerant Islam lament the coming of grim Islamist missionaries from Sudan and Saudi Arabia. He writes of other, earlier Fulani jihadis and bloody, internecine Moroccan and Malian and Songhai dynastic politics...and of the scholastic world of Timbuktu in its heyday as a university town.
The book suffers from too few maps--- place names and invasion/trade routes are named but never fully shown ---and could've used a few more colour photos. And de Villers spends too little time on Mali in the 1980s and the civil wars and refugee crisis that beset the region. But...a travel book that makes me want very much go to Timbuktu--- to look out to pirogues on the Niger and sunsets over the desert...
The book itself is both a travel memoir of Timbuktu in the early 2000s and a history of the rise of the decline of a city that gave its name to the phrase "going to Timbuktu"--- going to the exotic far edge of the world. De Villers contrasts the tumbledown dun-coloured city of 2005 with the golden city of legend and joins Tuareg and Bambara hosts to see half-repaired mosques and museums and the old caravansarais where caravans of salt and slaves (white gold, black gold) used to camp with thousands of camels. He watches lean, arrogant Tuaregs in their indigo veils swagger through the marketplaces, carrying broadswords but with mobile phones in the pockets of made-in-China robes...and he listens to scholars of an older, local, tolerant Islam lament the coming of grim Islamist missionaries from Sudan and Saudi Arabia. He writes of other, earlier Fulani jihadis and bloody, internecine Moroccan and Malian and Songhai dynastic politics...and of the scholastic world of Timbuktu in its heyday as a university town.
The book suffers from too few maps--- place names and invasion/trade routes are named but never fully shown ---and could've used a few more colour photos. And de Villers spends too little time on Mali in the 1980s and the civil wars and refugee crisis that beset the region. But...a travel book that makes me want very much go to Timbuktu--- to look out to pirogues on the Niger and sunsets over the desert...
July 30, 2021
When I was growing up I always wondered where it was Timbuktu. The history of this city is rich but what a shame that the city has come to such an obscure place where it appears to be dying. The authors did a lot of research. I don’t think I want to visit Timbuktu.
May 22, 2010
This is an odd book - mostly history, it also has some travel book elements in it. Some of the early history drags but at there is plenty of context - it isn't just about Timbuktu but ranges up to Morocco and throughout West Africa. I liked it but I think many readers would give up before getting too far into it.
The arrival of Europeans isn't described until about 25 pages from the end, so if one is interested in Mungo Park or Laing, this isn't the book.
The authors describe in one short chapter their visits to various libraries that hold mostly Arabic manuscripts in Timbuktu, including the Mamma Haidara Library. Amazingly I found an error - it says 23 manuscripts were brought to the U.S. and displayed at the Smithsonian, but in fact it was at the Library of Congress, where they were also digitized. Some years later he brought some additional materials - they are all available online here: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/m...
There are a few 19th century lithographs that are OK but the black and white photographs by the authors are not very well rendered or particularly interesting, which is puzzling. Nor are the maps very well done.
The arrival of Europeans isn't described until about 25 pages from the end, so if one is interested in Mungo Park or Laing, this isn't the book.
The authors describe in one short chapter their visits to various libraries that hold mostly Arabic manuscripts in Timbuktu, including the Mamma Haidara Library. Amazingly I found an error - it says 23 manuscripts were brought to the U.S. and displayed at the Smithsonian, but in fact it was at the Library of Congress, where they were also digitized. Some years later he brought some additional materials - they are all available online here: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/m...
There are a few 19th century lithographs that are OK but the black and white photographs by the authors are not very well rendered or particularly interesting, which is puzzling. Nor are the maps very well done.
September 3, 2016
_Timbuktu_ by Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle is an engaging history of that fabled Saharan city, its name once synonymous in the West with both remoteness and as a place of wealth beyond imagination, of golden spires and wise and tremendously rich kings, exerting a "hypnotic attraction on the Mediterranean world." It was similarly revered in the east as a major urban center in the Islamic world, for centuries a nexus of caravan trade in Saharan salt, gold from Ghana, and slaves as well as a center of learning and scholarship.
Surprisingly (at least for Western travelers past and present) for all its great fame Timbuktu has always been a city made largely of mud and unpaved streets of sand. Not a city made of gold, reflecting its local earthly origins, the city is "all beiges and dun, shading into the desert and scarcely distinguishable from it." Though there are a few mosques and houses made of brick and some stone, most buildings are mainly made of dried mud (pisé or pounded clay, which the locals call banco). Even the newer parts of town, laid out in a grid, are made of mud brick. Sadly, a shrinking population in the city has no money or manpower to repair an entire city of mud, one that melts in the wet-season rains unless protected by fresh plaster. By the way the spines that appear on Timbuktu buildings "like porcupine quills" are actually stone beams which serve as in-place scaffolds to help repair buildings when the rains come.
Timbuktu is even today a multi-ethnic city, reflecting its cosmopolitan past. The authors provide a quick profile of many of the ethnic groups that make up the city, including the Tuareg ("the most recalcitrant and farthest-traveled of the Berbers"), the Mande people (the dominant black African people along the Niger, governed two of the most powerful ancient African empires, and are the dominant ethnic group in Mali today), the Fulani (their origins reflecting a mixture of incoming Berbers and native Wolof), as well as the Dogon and the Songhai.
I found the information provided on the landscape and surrounding region of Timbuktu - particularly prior to its foundation and in its earlier years - quite fascinating. The Niger River used to flow much closer to the city and with greater volume. Hippos once wallowed near the city. Even more astonishing, a sizable forest once grew near Timbuktu, with many travelers and residents reporting elephants. That forest is now long gone, to some degree caused by direct human activity - Sonni Ali, a ruler of Gao, hewn down entire forests to construct boats to strike at his upriver enemies - but quite possibly the forest was doomed in any event due to gradual human attrition and increasing desiccation. Sadly, though elephants appear to have been gone from the area for centuries, others, such as giraffes and lions, vanished as recently as the 20th century.
All too briefly the authors touch on the recent discoveries of settlements, including dozens of large cities, that were abandoned along the Niger seven or eight hundred years ago, part of a trend reversing thinking in academic circles that equatorial Africa never developed cities, major monuments, or was in any way independent of Mediterranean trade.
Along the way Villiers and Hirtle provided in-depth portraits of the nature of the three main types of trade that sustained the city. "White gold, yellow gold, and black gold" were the basis of all Saharan trade, as the demand for salt made trade initially possible, gold financed it, and the slaves made it work (being both a tool and a luxury item, as many rulers used gifts of slaves as incentives). The authors visit a salt mine working not unlike how it did in the days of Timbuktu's golden ages (the whole salt-mining town of Taoudenni is salt; the house are made of slabs of salt, the roofs reed mats supported by poles!).
While salt is still being mined and sold for local use, gold no longer passes through the city. Gold was "the engine of Timbuktu's expansion;" African gold (particularly alluvial gold from the Senegal and Niger Rivers) became the "essential lubricant" of Mediterranean commerce, as two-thirds of the world's gold supply in the late Middle Ages came from West Africa. While these areas still produce gold, they have much diminished in importance thanks to modern mining techniques and more productive gold fields elsewhere.
The city once had a rich scholastic tradition, the authors describing the staggering numbers of ancient texts (estimates range from 30,000 to 300,000) squirreled away in many areas of the city, on topics as diverse as law, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and religion, many only now coming to the attention of researchers, translators, and preservationists who are struggling with meager funds to save these priceless books for the future.
The heart of the book though is the epic history of the city, from its foundation in the early 11th century by Tuareg nomads (a number of debated legends surround the founding of the city, though the most common ones center around a well of Buktu, or Tin'buktu, an old Tuareg woman who set up a camp in the dunes a few miles north of the Niger River as a convenient pasturing place that eventually became permanent), through its rise in two golden ages as a wealthy and learned metropolis (the first golden age began when the great and wealthy sultan, Mansa Musa, came to town in the middle 1300s, and the second and more significant golden age was several centuries later under the rule of the askias of Gao, starting with Askia Mohammed in the 1490s). The authors also recount the various conquests it has suffered, how it was a destination during the great age of European exploration of Africa in the 19th century, and how today it is a dusty, decaying desert town, its "glorious past turned to dust by invasion, conquest, jihad, and the long, long debilitating passage of time."
Surprisingly (at least for Western travelers past and present) for all its great fame Timbuktu has always been a city made largely of mud and unpaved streets of sand. Not a city made of gold, reflecting its local earthly origins, the city is "all beiges and dun, shading into the desert and scarcely distinguishable from it." Though there are a few mosques and houses made of brick and some stone, most buildings are mainly made of dried mud (pisé or pounded clay, which the locals call banco). Even the newer parts of town, laid out in a grid, are made of mud brick. Sadly, a shrinking population in the city has no money or manpower to repair an entire city of mud, one that melts in the wet-season rains unless protected by fresh plaster. By the way the spines that appear on Timbuktu buildings "like porcupine quills" are actually stone beams which serve as in-place scaffolds to help repair buildings when the rains come.
Timbuktu is even today a multi-ethnic city, reflecting its cosmopolitan past. The authors provide a quick profile of many of the ethnic groups that make up the city, including the Tuareg ("the most recalcitrant and farthest-traveled of the Berbers"), the Mande people (the dominant black African people along the Niger, governed two of the most powerful ancient African empires, and are the dominant ethnic group in Mali today), the Fulani (their origins reflecting a mixture of incoming Berbers and native Wolof), as well as the Dogon and the Songhai.
I found the information provided on the landscape and surrounding region of Timbuktu - particularly prior to its foundation and in its earlier years - quite fascinating. The Niger River used to flow much closer to the city and with greater volume. Hippos once wallowed near the city. Even more astonishing, a sizable forest once grew near Timbuktu, with many travelers and residents reporting elephants. That forest is now long gone, to some degree caused by direct human activity - Sonni Ali, a ruler of Gao, hewn down entire forests to construct boats to strike at his upriver enemies - but quite possibly the forest was doomed in any event due to gradual human attrition and increasing desiccation. Sadly, though elephants appear to have been gone from the area for centuries, others, such as giraffes and lions, vanished as recently as the 20th century.
All too briefly the authors touch on the recent discoveries of settlements, including dozens of large cities, that were abandoned along the Niger seven or eight hundred years ago, part of a trend reversing thinking in academic circles that equatorial Africa never developed cities, major monuments, or was in any way independent of Mediterranean trade.
Along the way Villiers and Hirtle provided in-depth portraits of the nature of the three main types of trade that sustained the city. "White gold, yellow gold, and black gold" were the basis of all Saharan trade, as the demand for salt made trade initially possible, gold financed it, and the slaves made it work (being both a tool and a luxury item, as many rulers used gifts of slaves as incentives). The authors visit a salt mine working not unlike how it did in the days of Timbuktu's golden ages (the whole salt-mining town of Taoudenni is salt; the house are made of slabs of salt, the roofs reed mats supported by poles!).
While salt is still being mined and sold for local use, gold no longer passes through the city. Gold was "the engine of Timbuktu's expansion;" African gold (particularly alluvial gold from the Senegal and Niger Rivers) became the "essential lubricant" of Mediterranean commerce, as two-thirds of the world's gold supply in the late Middle Ages came from West Africa. While these areas still produce gold, they have much diminished in importance thanks to modern mining techniques and more productive gold fields elsewhere.
The city once had a rich scholastic tradition, the authors describing the staggering numbers of ancient texts (estimates range from 30,000 to 300,000) squirreled away in many areas of the city, on topics as diverse as law, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and religion, many only now coming to the attention of researchers, translators, and preservationists who are struggling with meager funds to save these priceless books for the future.
The heart of the book though is the epic history of the city, from its foundation in the early 11th century by Tuareg nomads (a number of debated legends surround the founding of the city, though the most common ones center around a well of Buktu, or Tin'buktu, an old Tuareg woman who set up a camp in the dunes a few miles north of the Niger River as a convenient pasturing place that eventually became permanent), through its rise in two golden ages as a wealthy and learned metropolis (the first golden age began when the great and wealthy sultan, Mansa Musa, came to town in the middle 1300s, and the second and more significant golden age was several centuries later under the rule of the askias of Gao, starting with Askia Mohammed in the 1490s). The authors also recount the various conquests it has suffered, how it was a destination during the great age of European exploration of Africa in the 19th century, and how today it is a dusty, decaying desert town, its "glorious past turned to dust by invasion, conquest, jihad, and the long, long debilitating passage of time."
January 9, 2019
A great description and history of the "City of Gold".
Timbuktu lays the foundation for the scholar or arm-chair philosopher/historian alike. It draws the reader to mindful considerations of cause and effect, the passage of time, and the majesty of bygone eras -- a time where the glint of gold towers signaled the presence great cities long before travelers could lay their weary eyes upon it.
Much like the shifting sands of the Sahara the reader may find themselves treading through the occasional dry stretch.
Timbuktu lays the foundation for the scholar or arm-chair philosopher/historian alike. It draws the reader to mindful considerations of cause and effect, the passage of time, and the majesty of bygone eras -- a time where the glint of gold towers signaled the presence great cities long before travelers could lay their weary eyes upon it.
Much like the shifting sands of the Sahara the reader may find themselves treading through the occasional dry stretch.
March 30, 2018
This has been one of my favorite non-fiction books to read. The contrasting descriptions between Timbuktu's Golden Age and today are almost heartbreaking, though the characters give reason for hope. I'm looking forward to reading more about this area of the world thanks to this book.
March 25, 2015
Long obsessed with Sudano-Sahelian banco architecture, I bought and read this book hoping to learn more about that, as well as Timbutku’s centuries old role as the African continent’s premier book repository and center of scholarship after the disturbing destruction of the Royal Library of Alexandria. This book taught me little about the history of Timbuktu’s fabled Islamic Libraries (where camel meets canoe) and I was also disappointed where the entire construction and maintenance of the three great mosques of Timbuktu (the Sankore, the Sidi Yahiya, and the Djingareiber) was done in only a few pages. The maps also should be been zoomed in on more so that they were legible without a magnifying glass.
What gave this book the three stars it got? Well aside from getting my hopes up by putting Sudano-Sahelian architecture front and center on the cover but lightly discussing it inside and never mentioning why many Americans have the expression from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu in their heads (It was a famous song in the 1950’s), the book is not without merit. Lots of cool facts are inside. Ijebu had an amazing wall 100 miles in circumference, 65 feet tall with a huge moat – and no white person told them how to make it. Also, the largest earthworks in the world are near Benin. You learn a little about Gao and Djenne, the Tauregs, Mansa Musa (Kanka Musa) and the critical Songhai dynasty (Timbuktu’s golden dynasty). Banco replaced grass shelters during the Songhai dynasty. The book tells you the history of all the important things that were traded in Timbuktu, which of course was also one of Africa’s most important centers of trade for centuries. I liked that the book gave the feeling of travelling to Timbuktu – what it is like to get to and to visit and get to know. For the record, the Great Mosque of Djenne is far more beautiful than the three mosques of Timbuktu. Check it out; it’s one of the most beautiful buildings ever made…
What gave this book the three stars it got? Well aside from getting my hopes up by putting Sudano-Sahelian architecture front and center on the cover but lightly discussing it inside and never mentioning why many Americans have the expression from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu in their heads (It was a famous song in the 1950’s), the book is not without merit. Lots of cool facts are inside. Ijebu had an amazing wall 100 miles in circumference, 65 feet tall with a huge moat – and no white person told them how to make it. Also, the largest earthworks in the world are near Benin. You learn a little about Gao and Djenne, the Tauregs, Mansa Musa (Kanka Musa) and the critical Songhai dynasty (Timbuktu’s golden dynasty). Banco replaced grass shelters during the Songhai dynasty. The book tells you the history of all the important things that were traded in Timbuktu, which of course was also one of Africa’s most important centers of trade for centuries. I liked that the book gave the feeling of travelling to Timbuktu – what it is like to get to and to visit and get to know. For the record, the Great Mosque of Djenne is far more beautiful than the three mosques of Timbuktu. Check it out; it’s one of the most beautiful buildings ever made…
October 14, 2014
This book recounts the history of Timbuktu and the region around it. Timbuktu is where the Sahara meets the savannah and is close to the Niger River at its northern-most reach. It became a focal point of the caravan trade with a focus on gold, salt and slaves along with other goods from North Africa, the Mediterranean, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and beyond. It was also a meeting point of cultures, religions and ideas. During periods of stability, it was a city of learning and tolerance. But it was also raided, fought over and mismanaged many times.
The book also gives perspective to the current fighting in northern Mali and the region. It is not new and probably involves a lot of the same issues that have been fought over before.
The writing does not quite live up to the fascinating information presented here.
The book also gives perspective to the current fighting in northern Mali and the region. It is not new and probably involves a lot of the same issues that have been fought over before.
The writing does not quite live up to the fascinating information presented here.
January 31, 2013
This book is billed as a "rich and colorful history of one of the world's most fabled cities," yet in truth it is neither rich nor colorful at all. While it is certainly well-researched, this investigation of "the Sahara's Fabled City of Gold" fails to capture the reader for more than a few pages at a time. Ultimately, the famous city of Timbuktu is neither protagonist nor the setting for this rambling history. Instead, we are left with a scattered account of hour power changed hand from one Sahelian kingdom to another over the course of over one thousand years. If you are one of many who are intrigued by the concept of Timbuktu—the actual city and its story—then you should probably find another source to satisfy your curiosity.
June 18, 2016
Overall, I found this book to be an interesting but not a captivating read. The descriptions of history were at times interesting, but also at times were tedious and failed to enthrall me. As someone who has an interest in history, this was disappointing to me, since the fact that this was billed as a colorful history book was the entire reason that grabbed it off the library shelf. What I liked much more in this book was the descriptions of the authors' travel in Timbuktu and the contextual information about the city today. However, there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the organization of said segments.
March 2, 2013
Timbuktu was a very interesting read. It was full of information about the city of Timbuktu as it is now and and also its fabled history in the past. The authors gave a fairly comprehensive account of the Saharan trade routes and the tribal people who travelled them.While being an excellent history it was an account told primarily through the eyes of men and their interests and experiences.The tribal women get a brief mention here and there but it is brief and the authors do not really include the women in this book
June 1, 2015
Enjoyable book about Timbuktu. This part of the world fascinates me and I've not read much about it. This book really got me more more interested. My only complaint is the lack of maps. I kept an atlas handy while reading it, but maps showing the range of all the kingdoms over time would be quite helpful
February 4, 2015
Well written but uninspired. No thread that kept me coming back. I liked the travel aspect, the Timbuktu of today, more than the history, much of which is just citing ancient texts. It has its moments, like the section about salt mining in the desert (oh my!) but not enough.
Want to read
January 24, 2008it is on hold for me at the library!
Want to read
February 19, 2008I highly recommend this book not only because it looks interesting but because it contains several refferences to Me!!! and to my husband whose photo also apears.
Want to read
February 23, 2016Mali
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews