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St. Cloud Times (Minnesota)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
May 18, 2012 Friday
Library preserves Syrian manuscripts
by Frank Lee, St. Cloud Times, Minn.
May 18--COLLEGEVILLE -- It was a race against time halfway around the
world that started not far from St. Cloud.
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John's University completed a
manuscript preservation project in the Middle East shortly before the
violence worsened in Syria.
"This was our last current project in Syria, and we had done actually
a series of projects -- about six of them in Syria -- in different
locations," said the Rev. Columba Stewart, executive director of the
Collegeville-based library.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces began cracking down on
anti-government demonstrators about a year ago, resulting in car
bombings and more than 1,000 people killed, according to some reports.
However, HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, were able to
complete the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts belonging to the
Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo -- one of the largest Armenian
collections in Syria.
"We began the work before the current turmoil in Syria, and this
particular project was finished just as the situation started to get
bad in Aleppo, which had been quiet until fairly recently," Stewart
said during a call Tuesday from Bethlehem.
"I went to Syria a couple of times a year -- every year -- between
2003 and 2011, and we thought it would be one of the last places where
this kind of turmoil would occur."
Aleppo
Aleppo's Armenian community is ancient, dating from the days when
Aleppo was a prominent trading center on the Silk Road. In the early
20th century, Armenian refugees fleeing genocide in Turkey found
sanctuary with their compatriots in Aleppo.
"We also work on Islamic projects, so our interests transcend
particular denominations or religious groups because all of this
handwritten manuscript heritage is really the heritage of all
humankind," Stewart said.
HMML has now completed a series of projects in Aleppo that have
included important collections belonging to the Syriac Orthodox,
Syriac Catholic and Greek-Catholic communities, for a total of 2,150
digitally preserved manuscripts.
"Many of these manuscripts represent communities persecuted, scattered
and even destroyed in the tribulations of the last few centuries," he
said.
"Their survival, and the care given them by the churches of the Middle
East, is a testament to the profound meaning manuscripts have in the
cultural memory of traditional communities."
HMML also has digitized hundreds of manuscripts in Homs, center of the
current uprising in Syria, and in the capital, Damascus.
Church shelled
"There was recently a video on YouTube showing the church where we
photographed manuscripts being shelled by the Syrian army, but
fortunately they had moved the manuscripts, we found out later," he
said.
"It just shows why it's important to photograph these things while we
can, just in case something was to happen to them. ... These
manuscripts are fragile and they are in very endangered places."
HMML began working in Lebanon in 2003, in Syria and Turkey in 2005,
and in Iraq in 2009 to preserve the manuscripts, according to Stewart.
"We sign a contract with the community, which keeps all publication
and commercial rights with the owners of the manuscripts, but we're
allowed to share the photographs with scholars who will study and
write about the text, translate the text and so on," he said.
Adam McCollum is the lead cataloger of Eastern Christian manuscripts
at HMML and will be responsible for getting the Armenian collection
cataloged once it is at the HMML.
"Once the library has entered into a partnership with people who have
collections of manuscripts, a studio is set up there with a digital
camera, and entire manuscript collections are photographed and put
onto hard drives and mailed back to us," McCollum said.
For all of these projects, HMML provided the equipment, training and
salary to local photographic technicians, as well as ongoing technical
support.
"We have a guy who works for us who is based in Beirut who does the
actual training of the people, and then they do the work themselves,"
Stewart said.
Digital copy
The high-quality digital images from the collection are now being
processed at HMML's field office in Beirut, Lebanon, and will soon be
sent to Minnesota for archiving and inclusion in HMML's online
database, OLIVER.
"We worked in Europe for many years, we worked in Ethiopia for many
years, but in 2003, we started working with Christian communities in
the Middle East, beginning with Lebanon, who were feeling the
pressures of the general situation where they are a minority culture,"
Stewart said.
OLIVER provides "scholars, students and the general public" free
access to its manuscript collections. Scholars who wish to consult
complete manuscripts may apply to HMML for copies after agreeing to
conditions that reserve all copyright and commercial interests to the
original owners of the manuscript collections.
"We're trying to do as much as we can everywhere in the Middle East,"
he said. "The situation, of course, has only gotten worse and worse
over that time, which has made the work even more pressing. ... We're
very afraid that manuscripts will simply disappear."
One digital copy of the Armenian collection will stay with Bishop
Shahan Sarkissian and the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo. HMML
will keep an additional digital copy of the collection in a highly
secure location.
"The general populace in these places is still pretty safe -- at least
at this point -- but we have no idea what's going to happen in the
future," he said of HMML's continuing work in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey,
as well as in Ethiopia, southwest India and Malta.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID12305180011&nclick_check=1
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
May 18, 2012 Friday
Library preserves Syrian manuscripts
by Frank Lee, St. Cloud Times, Minn.
May 18--COLLEGEVILLE -- It was a race against time halfway around the
world that started not far from St. Cloud.
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John's University completed a
manuscript preservation project in the Middle East shortly before the
violence worsened in Syria.
"This was our last current project in Syria, and we had done actually
a series of projects -- about six of them in Syria -- in different
locations," said the Rev. Columba Stewart, executive director of the
Collegeville-based library.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces began cracking down on
anti-government demonstrators about a year ago, resulting in car
bombings and more than 1,000 people killed, according to some reports.
However, HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, were able to
complete the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts belonging to the
Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo -- one of the largest Armenian
collections in Syria.
"We began the work before the current turmoil in Syria, and this
particular project was finished just as the situation started to get
bad in Aleppo, which had been quiet until fairly recently," Stewart
said during a call Tuesday from Bethlehem.
"I went to Syria a couple of times a year -- every year -- between
2003 and 2011, and we thought it would be one of the last places where
this kind of turmoil would occur."
Aleppo
Aleppo's Armenian community is ancient, dating from the days when
Aleppo was a prominent trading center on the Silk Road. In the early
20th century, Armenian refugees fleeing genocide in Turkey found
sanctuary with their compatriots in Aleppo.
"We also work on Islamic projects, so our interests transcend
particular denominations or religious groups because all of this
handwritten manuscript heritage is really the heritage of all
humankind," Stewart said.
HMML has now completed a series of projects in Aleppo that have
included important collections belonging to the Syriac Orthodox,
Syriac Catholic and Greek-Catholic communities, for a total of 2,150
digitally preserved manuscripts.
"Many of these manuscripts represent communities persecuted, scattered
and even destroyed in the tribulations of the last few centuries," he
said.
"Their survival, and the care given them by the churches of the Middle
East, is a testament to the profound meaning manuscripts have in the
cultural memory of traditional communities."
HMML also has digitized hundreds of manuscripts in Homs, center of the
current uprising in Syria, and in the capital, Damascus.
Church shelled
"There was recently a video on YouTube showing the church where we
photographed manuscripts being shelled by the Syrian army, but
fortunately they had moved the manuscripts, we found out later," he
said.
"It just shows why it's important to photograph these things while we
can, just in case something was to happen to them. ... These
manuscripts are fragile and they are in very endangered places."
HMML began working in Lebanon in 2003, in Syria and Turkey in 2005,
and in Iraq in 2009 to preserve the manuscripts, according to Stewart.
"We sign a contract with the community, which keeps all publication
and commercial rights with the owners of the manuscripts, but we're
allowed to share the photographs with scholars who will study and
write about the text, translate the text and so on," he said.
Adam McCollum is the lead cataloger of Eastern Christian manuscripts
at HMML and will be responsible for getting the Armenian collection
cataloged once it is at the HMML.
"Once the library has entered into a partnership with people who have
collections of manuscripts, a studio is set up there with a digital
camera, and entire manuscript collections are photographed and put
onto hard drives and mailed back to us," McCollum said.
For all of these projects, HMML provided the equipment, training and
salary to local photographic technicians, as well as ongoing technical
support.
"We have a guy who works for us who is based in Beirut who does the
actual training of the people, and then they do the work themselves,"
Stewart said.
Digital copy
The high-quality digital images from the collection are now being
processed at HMML's field office in Beirut, Lebanon, and will soon be
sent to Minnesota for archiving and inclusion in HMML's online
database, OLIVER.
"We worked in Europe for many years, we worked in Ethiopia for many
years, but in 2003, we started working with Christian communities in
the Middle East, beginning with Lebanon, who were feeling the
pressures of the general situation where they are a minority culture,"
Stewart said.
OLIVER provides "scholars, students and the general public" free
access to its manuscript collections. Scholars who wish to consult
complete manuscripts may apply to HMML for copies after agreeing to
conditions that reserve all copyright and commercial interests to the
original owners of the manuscript collections.
"We're trying to do as much as we can everywhere in the Middle East,"
he said. "The situation, of course, has only gotten worse and worse
over that time, which has made the work even more pressing. ... We're
very afraid that manuscripts will simply disappear."
One digital copy of the Armenian collection will stay with Bishop
Shahan Sarkissian and the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo. HMML
will keep an additional digital copy of the collection in a highly
secure location.
"The general populace in these places is still pretty safe -- at least
at this point -- but we have no idea what's going to happen in the
future," he said of HMML's continuing work in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey,
as well as in Ethiopia, southwest India and Malta.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID12305180011&nclick_check=1