Time capsules: Mauritania's precious Chinguetti manuscripts

Saif el Islam al Ahmed Mahmoud sits in one of rooms where some of the 700 manuscripts privately owned by his family are preserved the library in Chinguetti, a city in Mauritania. Photo: AFP

Saif el Islam al Ahmed Mahmoud sat cross-legged on a sheepskin and gingerly turned the pages of an ancient manuscript.

"What would the world be without poetry?" he asked, using cotton gloves to handle the thin paper document, written in an ink concocted from charcoal and gum Arabic.