Good news reported by the BBC recently:
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The climate in Timbuktu, Mali is ideal for the natural preservation of ancient codices. In Medieval Times Timbuktu was a major overland transport hub, and amassed one of the world’s largest library of mostly Arabic language manuscripts, on all sorts of topics.
The reason this makes me happy is because in recent years Timbuktu has seen a lot of Islamic fundamentalist unrest, and is not safe for Western tourists or researchers to visit. As the article describes, there have been (so far only slightly successful) attempts by militant Islamists to destroy these codices. We may have lost the priceless libraries at Alexandria and Baghdad, but copies of some of the manuscripts contained there might very well have made their way to Timbuktu.
It’s my opinion that Medieval Arabic manuscripts are a potentially fruitful source of precedents for anyone exploring alchemical and/or herbal themes in the VMs. Or earlier and closer-to-the-source versions of mythology and philosophy from the world of Classical Antiquity.
Learning to read classical Arabic and spending my days looking at digitized alchemical manuscripts is one idea I have for a retirement project, if I ever retire.