So apparently, in 2012, the city of Timbuktu was occupied by Muslim extremists. Since Timbuktu used to be a city of scholars, it's got a lot of old manuscripts. The extremists tried to destroy the writings that they deemed "blasphemous," but they didn't have much success - largely because the most valuable manuscripts are personally owned and scattered among the people that live there.
This article is about some of the people who've made it their mission to preserve these artifacts. One of the points made in the article is that they're trying to make digital copies of the manuscripts in case anything happens to the originals. Things like insects and water damage remain a threat to even the best-kept writings, after all.
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