Cables

Print available.

Also available as laptop skins, stickers and more on redbubble.com.

Character's hairstyle influenced by Peul (Fulani) hairstyles from the Malian period costume movie Yeelen. Clothing inspired by (but not intended to be an authentic representation of) attire of nomadic Fulani.

The Fulani, a widely dispersed ethnic group, are among the many ethnic groups inhabiting the city of Timbuktu.¹ A center of scholarship from the 13th-17th century,² Timbuktu presently has more than 2 dozen libraries of medieval manuscripts.³

Among these many manuscripts are the Tarikh al-Sudan, a history book written by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di, a scholar who lived a part of his life in Timbuktu.⁴ This 17th century document chronicles the history of the Songhai Empire, preceding empires, and the lives of the scholars of Timbuktu and Djenné.⁵ The text on the monitor screens in this illustration are excerpts from the Tarikh-Al-Sudan.

Many thanks to the kind friends who helped with modeling and critique :-)

Notes:

1. Who lives in Timbuktu? (exploretimbuktu.com)
2. Timbuktu - Center of Learning (wikipedia)
3. Meet the unlikely group that saved Timbuktu's manuscripts (globalpost.com)
4. Script and Scholarship, p15 (Tombouctou Manuscript Project)
5. Tarikh al-Sudan (wikipedia)