Lessons Learnt from the Reconstruction of the Destroyed Mausoleums of Timbuktu, Mali Thierry Joffroy, Ben Essayouti
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Lessons learnt from the reconstruction of the destroyed mausoleums of Timbuktu, Mali Thierry Joffroy, Ben Essayouti To cite this version: Thierry Joffroy, Ben Essayouti. Lessons learnt from the reconstruction of the destroyed mausoleums of Timbuktu, Mali. HERITAGE2020 (3DPast | RISK-Terra) International Conference, Sep 2020, Valencia, Spain. pp.913-920, 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-1-2020-913-2020. hal-02928898 HAL Id: hal-02928898 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02928898 Submitted on 9 Sep 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLIV-M-1-2020, 2020 HERITAGE2020 (3DPast | RISK-Terra) International Conference, 9–12 September 2020, Valencia, Spain LESSONS LEARNT FROM THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE DESTROYED MAUSOLEUMS OF TIMBUKTU, MALI T. Joffroy 1, *, B. Essayouti 2 1 CRAterre-ENSAG, AE&CC, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France - [email protected] 2 Mission culturelle de Tombouctou, Tombouctou, Mali - [email protected] Commission II - WG II/8 KEY WORDS: World heritage, Post conflict, Reconstruction, Resilience, Traditional conservation ABSTRACT: In 2012, the mausoleums of Timbuktu were destroyed by members of the armed forces occupying the North of Mali. After liberation in January 2013, a joint process was launched by the Ministry of Culture of Mali, UNESCO, and the local stakeholders for the gradual reconstruction of these mausoleums, completed in 2016. This has been a long process for heritage structures which, at first glance, appear rather simple and small. However, based on the observations made during the first evaluation mission undertaken in May 2013, it appeared that this question is quite complex. In fact, most of the mausoleums - some at least five hundred years old - had been subjected to numerous changes during their history. This provided a large amount of very interesting new information on the mausoleums, leading to a complete revision of the interpretation of their physical nature and that of their surroundings, as well as of their associated intangible heritage and values. This has also led to numerous questions and discussions concerning the way they should be re-built, including the argument that some of the building techniques had not been used for several decades, and there was a potential need for regular maintenance in the long term. After the description of the process, and discussing the findings and decisions made in the various phases, this paper presents a series of lessons learnt before concluding with some remaining questions. 1. INTRODUCTION Following a long period of tension, on January 17, 2012, the Malian army officially entered into conflict with some armed groups in the northern zones of the national territory. This conflict somehow worsened due to the coup d'état of March 21, 2012, as the destabilization of the Malian army facilitated the advance of these armed groups to the south. They successively took the cities of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu and began to settle and impose their rule in almost all zones of Mali to the north of the Niger River. In addition to imposing a rigorous interpretation of the Sharia1, this occupation took material form in moral and cultural pressures on the local populations, with women forced to wear veils and the 2 imposition of many prohibitions (games, music, sport) . Figure 1. Mausoleum of Cheik Sidi Ben Amar, destroyed Moreover, they went so far that they purposely destroyed ancient on June 30, 2012 © Joffroy T. CRAterre. manuscripts and fifteen mausoleums associated with saints located in or near the city of Timbuktu inscribed on the World Heritage List in 19883. The destruction of these mausoleums in This destruction was revealed by the delegation from Mali which Timbuktu (Figure 1) was undertaken in several stages by Ansar was attending this important annual meeting of the signing parties Eddine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI). In of the 1972 convention. This led to an impassioned appeal from addition to the alleged religious reasons4, this destruction was the Director General of UNESCO, Mrs. Irina Bokova: designed to provoke the international community. In fact, the most important wave of destruction (Figure 1) took place while Nothing can justify such destruction and I call on all the the 36th meeting of the World Heritage Committee was being parties involved in the conflict to put an end to these held in St. Petersburg in Russia, from June 24 to July 6, 2012. terrible and irreversible acts, to exercise their responsibilities and to protect this invaluable cultural heritage for future generations * Corresponding author 1 Islamic law The World Heritage Committee immediately took this appeal 2 Dramatic testimony of this situation was provided to us by the Chef into account. Through Decision 36COM 7B.106 Timbuktu de Mission Culturelle de Kidal when he managed to travel to serial property and the Tomb of Askia in Gao were registered Bamako in December 2012. on the List of World Heritage in Danger. As a logical follow-up 3 The World Heritage Sites in Timbuktu are the three older mosques to this decision, the World Heritage Center opened a special of the city and sixteen mausoleums, three of which are located in account in Mali for the safeguarding of its cultural heritage Kabara, a nearby village/port on the north bank of the Niger River. 4 The armed groups saw the presence of mausoleums as a religious affected by the conflict, with funding allocated from the practice of inadmissible idolatry. UNESCO Emergency Fund. This contribution has been peer-reviewed. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-1-2020-913-2020 | © Authors 2020. CC BY 4.0 License. 913 The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLIV-M-1-2020, 2020 HERITAGE2020 (3DPast | RISK-Terra) International Conference, 9–12 September 2020, Valencia, Spain In the meantime, Mali had joined the 1999 Second Protocol Ben Essayouti has been the Chef de la mission culturelle de of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Tombouctou since 2013 and was actually one of the first the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention), thus representatives of the Malian government to return to Timbuktu allowing it to benefit from additional attention, in particular following the liberation in 2013. He has played a key role in from the Blue shield. This resulted in the preparation of a establishing good links between the Government, international “heritage passport” and maps5 to be used by the Malian army organisations, and the local authorities and people, as well as in the event of a counterattack. with the heritage custodians and the masons’ corporation. Still in this position, Ben Essayouti is undertaking regular inspection Early in 2013, a counterattack was launched in a common visits to heritage sites in Timbuktu. effort by both the Malian and French armies. On January 28, 2013, Timbuktu was liberated and a few days later, French At the end of December 2019, he organised a specific President François Hollande visited the city with the Director inspection tour of all the mausoleums included in the DNPC- General of UNESCO, Mrs. Irina Bokova. UNESCO reconstruction programme to obtain first-hand and fresh information for the preparation of this paper. This This was followed by the organisation of an international included interviews with most of the main traditional meeting at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris – on February 18, custodians and stakeholders in order to gain a proper 2013 - which resulted in a common declaration by Mali, understanding of people’s attitude and behaviour in relation France and UNESCO : “Nous reconstruirons les mausolées to the reconstructed mausoleums. de Tombouctou”. This led to the launch of a joint project which took little over three years to be completed. Three 3. OBJECTIVES AND DEFINITION OF A STRATEGY years after its completion, some very interesting lessons can FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION be learnt from both the project and some recent observations made at the mausoleums in relation to the current overall While some basic aims had already been set at the time of the situation in Timbuktu and Mali. international experts’ meeting organised in Paris on February 18, 2013, reports on the state of conservation of the affected 2. SOURCES OF INFORMATION AND heritage in Timbuktu had remained very general. They only METHODOLOGY contained partial information on the level of destruction and current condition, and were not very clear on the question of This paper is based on the documentation existing prior to and how people’s self-confidence in their culture could be affected. produced during the project studied (see selected bibliography). However, in this case both authors have been Therefore, UNESCO10 decided to organise several missions, directly involved in the DNPC6 - UNESCO programme for the first with a group of national experts (architects and heritage reconstruction of the heritage in the northern zones of Mali specialists) from May 28, and later involving international from the very beginning. experts11. This first international assessment mission took place on June 6 (Figure 2). Thierry Joffroy of CRAterre7 had already worked with the Mission culturelle de Tombouctou in 1996 while also being involved in a number of studies undertaken with Ali Ould Sidi8, leading to a number of publications on the heritage of Timbuktu, with a specific interest in the traditional conservation practices9 of the masons’ corporation.