The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu

Transcription

1 The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu The Quest for Stars in the Sand, Guiding us to Africa s forgotten past A one-hour documentary film project Guided by astrophysicist Dr Thebe Medupe, a group of modern scientists engage in the first exploration of the scientific contents of the manuscript archives of Timbuktu. The film reveals the painstaking work done by conservators at the Ahmed Baba Centre and manuscript owners from the Mama Haidara, Fondo Kati and Djingerey Ber manuscript libraries as they face the daunting task of conserving the brittle and damaged documents before this valuable history is lost forever to the sands of the Sahara Desert. Dr Medupe works with Islamic Science Historian Dr Petra Schmidl on deciphering the meaning and significance of the manuscripts. With comment from Islamic Science Historians Prof George Saliba and Dr John Steele we reveal the historical background to the information found in these papers and the relevance of Timbuktu s Islamic history. On this quest the film takes the viewer to Bamako, the capital of Mali, and east along the Niger River to the mystical city of Timbuktu. To Cape Town on the southernmost tip of Africa, north to the town of Sutherland and the state-of-the-art Southern African Large Telescope and to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Each location is shown on a graphic map of Africa with geographic co-ordinates. Subject matter included in the film: - The history of Timbuktu and the families living there today. - The background to the famous universities of Timbuktu. - Conservation methods chosen by manuscript owners and conservators. - The influence of Islamic astronomy knowledge on the European Renaissance. 1

2 Timbuktu manuscript content included in the film: - The five daily prayer times calculated by using a gnomon. - The direction to Mecca - the qibla - for the five daily prayers, using spherical trigonometry and a simpler method using the gnomon. - The positioning of the planets - why the accepted model of the universe changed from an Earth-centered to a Sun-centered model. - Calendars - the lunar and solar calendar systems and the difference between various calendars around the world. - A method to calculate leap years is tested. - Sine quadrant - using information from a manuscript the researchers use a quadrant to tell the time by measuring the angle of the Sun. A re-creation in Timbuktu using a wooden quadrant is shown. - Information from a manuscript and graphics of the night sky over Timbuktu show how to use the mansions of the moon to tell the time at night. - A copy of a manuscript with tables originally written by a renowned medieval Egyptian astronomer with calculations and information on the positions of the planets, moon and stars. Throughout the documentary re-creations of life in medieval Timbuktu illustrate and enhance discoveries bringing to life the work of the academics of Timbuktu. The DVD has Arabic and French sub titles and contains extra interview sections from researchers. The DVD version of The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu is available through the website An in-depth summary of The Ancient Astronomers of Timbuktu one hour documentary film The city of Timbuktu is a thriving market town situated on the southern edge of the Sahara, close to the Niger River - co-ordinates on a map of Africa illustrate its geographic position. (See - Timbuktu, Mali 3D Google Maps) Archive interview footage of noted Arabic historian John Hunwick. He first brought the Timbuktu libraries to world attention in the 1970 s. 2

3 At the Mamma Haidara library Abdul Kader Haidara describes historical information found in the manuscripts and shows a manuscript that contains his family tree. Conservation We show footage illustrating the harsh climatic conditions found in Timbuktu. The temperature is often over 50 degrees Celsius, with dust storms and a tropical rainy season. Many manuscripts have survived for hundreds of years but some have been destroyed by the severe climate and inadequate storage conditions. The remaining manuscripts need conservation and preservation to survive. South African conservators Alexio Motsi and Mary Manicka work together with Malian trainees at the Ahmed Baba Centre. Footage shows the chosen methods of conservation - manuscript dry cleaning and long-term storage in individually made boxes. Iziko Timbuktu manuscript exhibition - Cape Town Shahid Matthee, a researcher in Islamic law from the University of Cape Town, is part of a jurisprudence content research project. He reads from the Tarick el Sudan - an important 17th Century chronicle of Timbuktu by Abdrah Manus Saardi (Born 1595). The Tarick el Sudan tells why the city was established near the Niger River, the Islamic trading history of the city and how manuscripts came into importance here. Shahid gives the history of scholarship at the Sankore Mosque and how the Timbuktu universities functioned. A map illustrates the trade routes in North and West Africa at the time. Manuscripts from this time contain religion and poetry, medicine and law. Science and astronomy were also studied, which interested Dr Thebe Medupe. 3

4 Sutherland, Northern Cape - South Africa Astrophysicist Dr Thebe Medupe is at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in the remote town of Sutherland. Aerial footage shows the magnificence of this stateof-the-art telescope that is used by international research astronomers to investigate distant stars, galaxies and quasars a billion times too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Thebe explains to a group of students how the telescope moves on air cushions and footage filmed from the interior roof of the telescope shows the hexagonal mirror array that is 11 meters across. ( Dr Medupe travels to Timbuktu, Mali Dr Medupe wants to show young African scientists that science and astronomy has been studied in Africa for centuries; he is interested in the culture of learning that existed in Medieval West Africa. He travels to Mali and crosses the Niger River on a vehicle ferry to reach Timbuktu. He finds small collections of family manuscripts and larger more formal libraries. People value these manuscripts and have kept them safe for centuries. Very little is known about their contents and he begins looking for astronomy manuscripts to study. Ismael Haidara s family arrived in Timbuktu from Spain in 1468 and Ismael shows manuscript no. 19, the Tarick el Fattash. A note on a meteor shower that was seen in skies above Timbuktu in 991 Hejira (Islamic year) is found in its margin. We show a graphic of how this phenomenon would have looked to the ancient scribe. Centuries ago people watched the skies and noted what they saw there. 4

5 Thebe is looking for references to more scientific observations and he works with Malian researchers Adama Coulibaly and Imam Ouma Doumbia to track down astronomy manuscripts in Timbuktu and surrounds. Djingerey Ber (Mosque) The current Imam, Abderrahmane Ben Essayouti, shows them a manuscript that has been in his family library for generations. This manuscript has illustrations showing how the planets move through the heavens. Next they travel to the small village of Ber in the Sahel where they find a trunk full of manuscripts. Manuscripts such as these were hidden for safe keeping when Mali was under French rule to stop them being removed from the country. Astrology in the manuscripts On their search they find manuscripts on the subject of astrology. Adama and Imam Oumar visit Malian astrologer, Alfoussein Diarra, to discuss the contents of manuscript 4169 from the Ahmed Baba collection. Adama reads in Arabic from a scanned copy of the manuscript on his laptop and Alfoussein explains what these sections mean. Is it an auspicious time or one of doom? 5

6 This section explains that originally astrology was the main reason for naming the stars and planets and trying to understand the positions of celestial bodies. Since ancient Babylon, better predictions meant more accurate forecasts for astrologers. Astrology and astronomy were for many centuries one subject. The section includes footage of an eclipse of the Moon - an extremely important event to astrologers in times gone by. Ahmed Baba Centre Thebe, Adama and Imam Oumar and conservators Alexio and Mary look closely at manuscript 674. They are interested in different aspects of the manuscripts and discuss their thoughts as they carefully turn the ink-covered pages. Mary tells how the paper was made and how to tell where it came from. The selected astronomy manuscripts: Manuscript 674 is on how to use the sine quadrant. Manuscript 3272 was written by Muhammad Baghayogho, a Fulani from Timbuktu. It has information about the Islamic naming and grouping of the stars. Manuscript 2163 contains scientific tables written by noted Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus. Manuscript 3670 has some mathematics and a description of the Islamic idea of the solar system and universe and was written by a Timbukttuan, Abul Abbas al-ghallawi. The original manuscripts are scanned and returned to their boxes for safekeeping. Adama and Imam Oumar begin the slow process of translating the manuscripts from Arabic into English at the University of Bamako. Cape Town - The beginning of the month of Ramadan South Africa s oldest city is also situated on a historic trade route. We experience the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan at the edge of the Indian Ocean on a stormy evening. Shahid explains the importance of Ramadan and why they are looking out for the new moon. Thebe s field is astrophysics. He is interested in the strong link between astronomy and Islam. Dr Petra Schmidl, a medieval Islamic astronomy historian, arrives in Cape Town to work with him on the manuscripts. She has spent many years researching Islamic manuscripts from the Middle East. They work from printed copies of the manuscripts and a scanned version on a large computer screen. Manuscript findings are inter-cut with re-creations and scenes from Timbuktu. Manuscript 3670 has a section dealing with the 5 daily prayers and how to determine when to perform them. Early morning or fajr prayers are shown with a pre-dawn sequence of Timbuktu and the sound of the Muezzins call to prayer. A stop-frame sequence outside the Djingerey Ber (Mosque) shows the changing shadow of the gnomon, used to determine the midday or zuhr and afternoon or asr prayer times. A simple 6

7 explanation of this is given in the manuscript. This sequence is inter-cut with footage of people arriving for prayers at Djingerey Ber. We show the midday prayers inside the mud walls of the mosque as they have been taking place since the 1300 s. Science historian Professor George Saliba believes that the European renaissance in science was made possible because of the richness of Islamic astronomy. He explains how the direction to Mecca for prayer was worked out using spherical trigonometry. Manuscript 674 has a simpler method with a diagram for determining the direction to Mecca or qibla by first working out the direction of north. Thebe and Petra look at a diagram in the manuscript and the method is illustrated by using a stop-frame sequence of a gnomon and its shadow outside the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu. A graphic is added which shows how the angles are calculated to show the direction of Mecca. A map illustrates the extent of the Islamic world in the Middle Ages. Manuscript 3670 gives an explanation of the solar system with the Earth at the center. Thebe visits a school in Timbuktu and explains this basic model and the accepted model used today. Prof Saliba explains why astronomers changed from the Earth-centered model to a Sun-centered one. A graphic of the retrograde motion he describes illustrates this. He tells how scientific and mathematical knowledge developed over time from being motivated by religious requirements to answering cosmological questions. The families of Timbuktu and the Imams from the city s many mosques gather in a large sandy square for prayers to signify Eid - the end of the fast of Ramadan. Prof Saliba explains that the Islamic calendar is based on lunar months, and because the phases of the moon do not divide exactly into a solar year, Islamic-calendar events such as Ramadan occur at a different time on the solar calendar every year. In Timbuktu, Adama and Imam Oumar wash their hands and enjoy the meal to break the fast. 7

8 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia The language and culture of Ethiopia were also influenced by the ancient Middle East. They have devised their own Coptic-influenced calendar where religious feasts happen at the same time of year, every year. Filmed on location at the Kidist Salassie and St. Mary Magdalene Cathedrals, Addis Ababa. Dr. John Steele is a specialist in ancient astronomy and is attending a conference on the history of calendars throughout the world. He s interested in how different cultures and faiths have used various methods of astronomical observations to help them mark the passage of time. He explains how the Coptic calendar is calculated. Different calendar systems create a problem for astronomers trying to work back to specific days in history. Translating between different calendars and working out the occurrence of leap years are often described in the manuscripts. Manuscript If you want to know if it is a leap year, from the whole number of the Hejira (Islamic) year, subtract a series of thirties. Thebe writes a FORTRAN program based on an algorithm from MS 3670 and tests it. A time-lapse sequence of the famed Sankore mosque goes from day to night revealing a star-laden sky. Manuscript 3272 demonstrates how to tell the time by using the 28 lunar mansions - which is similar to the 12 signs of the Zodiac. The Almighty God said: We estimate the moon by mansions. They are the well-known mansions to the Arabs. They are 28 mansions. Al Khatob said: These mansions are stars close to the Zodiac. The night sky over Timbuktu is shown with a graphic of various mansions illustrated moving overhead. A graphic of the night sky with the mansion Batnel Hut is shown. The mansion Al-Nath is shown ramping to the next mansion Al-Butayn. Petra and Thebe follow the various sections in the manuscript and explain how the 28 mansions rotating around the Earth in 24 hours with each mansion rising approximately every 51 minutes were used to tell the time at night. Manuscript 674 is an instruction manual on how to use the sine quadrant, an instrument that can be used to compute hundreds of calculations, measure altitude, find direction, and tell the time. 8

9 Petra and Thebe calculate the time using a sine quadrant made to specifications from information in the pages of the manuscript. This is followed by a re-creation in the courtyard of the Djingerey Ber of a teacher and scholars with a wooden quadrant like the ones that would have been used in medieval times. Manuscript 2163 is a series of tables written by Ibn Yunus from 10 th Century Egypt. It contains accurate determinations of the positions of the Moon and planets, similar to a modern day almanac. Conclusion: Thebe: I was fascinated by the manuscript that is attributed to Ibn Yunus which contains things that have not been found anywhere in the Islamic world. New data tables and things like that. That is exciting to me. Voice-over: As the immaculate calligraphy of the manuscripts is deciphered and the neatly inked drawings understood, they explode the myth that Timbuktu is some distant, irrelevant, almost fictional place. Petra: It s interesting to see that Islamic astronomy has reached the edge of the Islamic world, where Timbuktu is. We have the standard astronomical methods and procedures that we know from other parts of Islamic countries from the middle ages. Thebe: I don t think ten years ago people would have thought that you d find these kind of manuscripts in black Africa. Because black people are not supposed to write and African history is simply oral history. And these books show that s not true. Africa has written records as far back as a thousand years and we may be beginning a new chapter on the history of astronomy and the history of science in Africa. Voice-over: For Thebe the manuscripts are the link between astronomy in Africa today and an African past where science and scholarship were valued and appreciated; they must be preserved so that Timbuktu s history can inspire the future. This story is only beginning to unfold. 9