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}} Timbuktu (; (フランス語:Tombouctou) (:tɔ̃buktu); Koyra Chiini: ''Tumbutu''), also spelled Timbuctoo and Timbuktoo, is a city in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census. Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves. It became part of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhai Empire absorbed the city in 1468. A Moroccan army defeated the Songhai in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their capital. The invaders established a new ruling class, the arma, who after 1612 became virtually independent of Morocco. However, the golden age of the city was over and it entered a long period of decline. Different tribes governed until the French took over in 1893, a situation that lasted until it became part of the current Republic of Mali in 1960. Presently, Timbuktu is impoverished and suffers from desertification. In its Golden Age, the town's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. These stories fueled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. This reputation overshadows the town itself in modern times, to the point where it is best known in Western culture as an expression for a distant or outlandish place. On 1 April 2012, one day after the capture of Gao, Timbuktu was captured from the Malian military by the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA and Ansar Dine. Five days later, the MNLA declared the region independent of Mali as the nation of Azawad. The declared political entity was not recognized by any local nations or the international community and it collapsed three months later on 12 July. On 28 January 2013, French and Malian government troops began retaking Timbuktu from the Islamist rebels. The force of 1,000 French troops with 200 Malian soldiers retook Timbuktu without a fight. The Islamist groups had already fled north a few days earlier, having set fire to the Ahmed Baba Institute, which housed many important manuscripts. The building housing the Ahmed Baba Institute was funded by South Africa, and held 30,000 manuscripts. BBC World Service radio news reported on 29 January 2013 that approximately 28,000 of the manuscripts in the Institute had been removed to safety from the premises before the attack by the Islamist groups, and that the whereabouts of about 2,000 manuscripts remained unknown.〔 Also broadcast BBC World Service news on 29 January 2013.〕 It was intended to be a resource for Islamic research. On 30 March 2013, jihadist rebels infiltrated into Timbuktu just nine days prior to a suicide bombing on a Malian army checkpoint at the international airport killing a soldier. Fighting lasted until 1 April, when French warplanes helped Malian ground forces chase the remaining rebels out of the city center. ==Toponymy== Over the centuries, the spelling of Timbuktu has varied a great deal: from ''Tenbuch'' on the Catalan Atlas (1375), to traveller Antonio Malfante's ''Thambet'', used in a letter he wrote in 1447 and also adopted by Alvise Cadamosto in his ''Voyages of Cadamosto'', to Heinrich Barth's ''Timbúktu'' and ''Timbu'ktu''. French spelling often appears in international reference as "Tombouctou." As well as its spelling, Timbuktu's toponymy is still open to discussion.〔 "Timbuktu" – regardless of spelling, has long been used as a metaphor for "out in the middle of nowhere." E.g. "From here to Timbuktu and back." 〕 At least four possible origins of the name of Timbuktu have been described: * Songhay origin: both Leo Africanus and Heinrich Barth believed the name was derived from two Songhay words:〔 Leo Africanus writes the Kingdom of Tombuto was named after a town of the same name, founded in 1213 or 1214 by ''Mansa'' Suleyman. The word itself consisted of two parts: ''tin'' (wall) and ''butu'' (Wall of Butu). Africanus did not explain the meaning of this ''Butu''.〔 Heinrich Barth wrote: "The town was probably so called, because it was built originally in a hollow or cavity in the sand-hills. Tùmbutu means hole or womb in the Songhay language: if it were a Temáshight (Tamashek) word, it would be written Tinbuktu. The name is generally interpreted by Europeans as ''well'' of Buktu, but ''tin'' has nothing to do with well." * Berber origin: Malian historian Sekene Cissoko proposes a different etymology: the Tuareg founders of the city gave it a Berber name, a word composed of two parts: ''tim'', the feminine form of ''In'' (place of) and "''bouctou''", a small dune. Hence, Timbuktu would mean "place covered by small dunes".〔Cissoko, S.M (1996). ''(l'Empire Songhai )''. Paris: L'Harmattan.〕 * Abd al-Sadi offers a third explanation in his 17th-century ''Tarikh al-Sudan'': "The Tuareg made it a depot for their belongings and provisions, and it grew into a crossroads for travellers coming and going. Looking after their belongings was a slave woman of theirs called Tinbuktu, which in their language means (one having a ) 'lump'. The blessed spot where she encamped was named after her." * The French Orientalist René Basset forwarded another theory: the name derives from the Zenaga root ''b-k-t'', meaning "to be distant" or "hidden", and the feminine possessive particle ''tin''. The meaning "hidden" could point to the city's location in a slight hollow. The validity of these theories depends on the identity of the original founders of the city: as recently as 2000, archaeological research has not found remains dating from the 11th/12th century within the limits of the modern city given the difficulty of excavating through meters of sand that have buried the remains over the past centuries. Without consensus, the etymology of Timbuktu remains unclear. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Timbuktu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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