Sixteen original manuscripts from Timbuktu are featured in an exhibition at Brussels' Centre for Fine Arts that runs until February 22.

The manuscripts are written in Arabic

The papers were among a huge number of cultural treasures rescued from the desert town's famous libraries during the 2012 war in Mali, a move described by art historian Julie Chaizemartin as "one of the biggest cultural rescue operations ever in the context of an exacerbated political-ideological war".

Written in the 15th and 16th centuries, they are some of the earliest recorded texts from Africa.

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