<P> By the time Shabeni was 27, he was an established merchant in his hometown . Returning from a trade mission to Hamburg, his English ship was captured and brought to Ostend by a ship under Russian colours in December 1789 . He was subsequently set free by the British consulate, but his ship set him ashore in Dover for fear of being captured again . Here, his story was recorded . Shabeeni gave an indication of the size of the city in the second half of the 18th century . In an earlier passage, he described an environment that was characterized by forest, as opposed to nowadays' arid surroundings . </P> <P> The most well - known cultural event is the Festival au Désert . When the Tuareg rebellion ended in 1996 under the Konaré administration, 3,000 weapons were burned in a ceremony dubbed the Flame of Peace on 29 March 2007--to commemorate the ceremony, a monument was built . The Festival au Désert, to celebrate the peace treaty, is held near the city in January . </P> <P> During its twelfth session, in December 1988, the World Heritage Committee (WHC) selected parts of Timbuktu's historic centre for inscription on its World Heritage list . The selection was based on three criteria: </P> <Ul> <Li> Criterion II: Timbuktu's holy places were vital to early Islamization in Africa . </Li> <Li> Criterion IV: Timbuktu's mosques show a cultural and scholarly Golden Age during the Songhay Empire . </Li> <Li> Criterion V: The construction of the mosques, still mostly original, shows the use of traditional building techniques . </Li> </Ul>

When did timbuktu become a world heritage site