This month four collections have gone up online, these are EAP127, EAP266, EAP550 and EAP607.

EAP127 is a project that digitised Bengali 'popular books', street literature targeted at a wide population geared to the non-elites.

The material covers such varied subjects as religion, folk culture, local history, popular literature, pornography and erotica, fashion and cookery, instruction on traditional rural pursuits such as agriculture and animal farming, citizen's rights, public hygiene and social reform.

The books are of unique sociological interest, illustrating the changing society, culture and economy of Bengal. They illustrate sectors of Bengali printing history and book trade and developments of the Bengali language. They were usually printed cheaply on poor paper that discoloured quickly. Digitising these collections has ensured that they will be preserved as a resource for future researchers.

A large amount of this collection unfortunately is not able to be viewed online because of copyright reasons, however over 13,000 images are available and the remainder can be viewed in the British Library reading rooms.

EAP127/9/104 - Image 1

EAP266 is a pilot project which aimed to reorganise the Bolama collection in Guinea-Bissau. Bolama was the first capital of Portuguese Guinea, these records relate to the city and island dated from 1870’s to the 1960’s. They are currently held by the National Historical Archives of Guinea-Bissau after being transferred from the Mayoral Office of Bolama in 1988. It includes all the documents of the public administration which could be found in Bolama in 1988.

The Bolama collection is of great historical value. It reflects the fundamental change in Portuguese colonial rule from outside administration (directed from the Cape Verde Islands) to significant Portuguese presence and the political and economic penetration of the Guinean mainland.
In January 2009 some additional research was undertaken in Bolama and other public documents from the colonial period on the island were found. Relevant documents of the Bolama Court were stored in the archives of the Ministry of Justice in Bissau; these records were in a vulnerable state as the archive was stored in the loft of the old Palace of Justice which has a roof in a bad state of repair.

As part of the project these additional records were transported to the National Historical Archives of Guinea-Bissau. The documents of the entire collection were painstakingly restored to their original order and rearranged and re-packaged in 279 boxes. A digital sample of the records was taken and this is now available to view via our website.

EAP266/1/1 - Image 5

EAP550 surveyed and digitised Yao manuscripts from Yunnan province in Southern China. Yao manuscripts are very unique writings which are significant for understanding Yao people, their religion and culture in general. They are mainly used in religious activities including funerals, annual festivals and special rituals for telling fortunes and expelling evils. Yao manuscripts record texts on various subjects but in a relatively standard poetic format. Since the texts cover the local knowledge on history, literature, astrology, geography, agriculture and many other subjects, they are regarded as the encyclopaedia of Yao people. The texts are read or sang normally by the indigenous priests, known as shigong in Chinese, sometimes they are accompanied by a couple of female singers. It seems that being a shigong shaman is a family profession succeeding in the patrilineal lineage, therefore Yao manuscripts are preserved in individual families and traditionally it is prohibited to show manuscripts to strangers. Yao manuscripts can be accessed in numbers only when the social changes drive shigong shaman to a marginal status and manuscripts are no longer as cherished.

The Yao manuscripts are endangered in many aspects. Firstly, the quality of the original material and their preservation conditions. Secondly, the modernisation process in China after the 1980s brought dramatic changes to the Yao societies. Shigong shamans were marginalised and the indigenous religious activities mostly abandoned. Yao manuscripts were viewed as insignificant and destroyed at an astonishing speed. Thirdly, smuggling and illegal trading brought further threats to the records.

The project was successful in digitising over 200 volumes of Yao manuscripts and creating the first database on the records surviving in China.

EAP550/1/13 – Image 10

EAP607 digitised Native Administration records which were generated between 1891 and 1964 by the Native Authorities (traditional chiefs) in Malawi, formerly Nyasaland.

Prior to British colonialism, Malawi was a predominantly oral society where everything was transacted and captured orally. The establishment of Native Authorities marked a historic transition as traditional leaders were required to conduct and capture official business on paper. The Native Administration records are therefore immensely unique and historical as they portray the interaction between the literate Western culture and oral African culture and the subsequent triumph of literacy over illiteracy in Malawi. The records are a lasting legacy of the impact of colonialism on the people of Malawi.

From July to September 2011, the National Archives of Malawi carried out an earlier pilot project (EAP427) which inspected 32 traditional authorities in the northern region of Malawi to confirm whether traditional chiefs were still keeping the records and to assess the condition of them. The results of the survey established that there were significant volumes of vital records relating to the native administration between 1891 and 1964. The Native Administration records are regarded as personal property inherited by successive chiefs over the past century. EAP607 carried on this work and further identified and assessed the nature and volume of Native Administration records in Malawi. The project digitised the most endangered records. Approximately 20,000 records were digitised and are now available to view online

  EAP607/4/9 - Image 1

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This month's blog is written by Robert Miles who is part of the EAP team and is currently cataloguing our very early projects. Obviously EAP001 caught his interest and it is easy to see why.

 

The very first EAP project, and one that has recently been made available to view online, consists of a fascinating collection of images taken in late 19th-early 20th century Iran. This pilot project identified important photographic material collections in 13 urban centres in Iran and investigated the feasibility of digitising these collections in the future whilst producing samples of the images. These images chart the development of photography in Iran, from early glass plate negatives to modern-style studio portrait photography, as well as providing visual evidence of the rapid social and cultural changes and modernisation of the country.

EAP001/1/2 - Photo of Mass'oud Mirza Zell al-Sultan [1890s]

Photography was introduced into Iran in the mid-19th century Qajar era shortly after the birth of popular practical photography with the daguerreotype in Europe. During the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, King of Persia 1848-1896, photography was accepted and encouraged as a vital means for the court to document important events and ceremonies and to capture portraits of themselves and their families. Naser al-Din Shah Qajar’s eldest son, Mass'oud Mirza Zell al-Sultan (1848-1917), a powerful prince of the Qajar dynasty and ruler of Isfahan, followed his father’s interest in photography and employed photographers within his court. His portrait can be seen in the image above.

Throughout much of history, portraiture was used as a status symbol and the introduction of portrait photography continued this. From the late 19th century through to the late 1940s portrait photography remained available in Iran only to those who were relatively wealthy and/or with positions of power. Many of the photographs in this collection clearly show the elevated social class of the subjects, or perhaps just an image of an idealised representation they wanted to portray. The displays of wealth, evident in the type of clothes the subjects wore or the possessions and objects they chose to be photographed with helped to display this wealth and social standing, as well as the individual’s skills or profession.

EAP001/6/1 – Constitutional Revolution Hero, Sattar Khan.

 
EAP001/1/2 - Group portrait of clerics at the house of Mirza Malek al-Tojar, Esfahan. c.1900-1920

The collection includes photographs from many key figures in the history of Iranian photography including Ernst Hoeltzer, who states his reasons for documenting the rapid social and cultural changes and modernisation of the country,

“the culture of Persia and Isfahan is about to change drastically and already in the last few years many foreign and European styles and luxuries have been introduced. The old buildings and customs (even the clothing) are gradually disappearing with the result that all those things that have been described by Chardin and Tavernier will simply no longer exist. In fact people will begin to doubt and reject what they have described. Furthermore, I have had time and opportunity to photograph several of the most interesting landscapes, buildings and squares during the last years of my stay – which pleased me all the more since many of the buildings which I had photographed were destroyed shortly after.”[1]

 
EAP001/7/2 - Mass demonstration by workers in Esfahan [1940s-1950s]

Many of these changes can be observed in the photographs within this collection.  They are most obvious in the portrait photographs taken after the transition from the Qajar dynasty to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Pahlavi dynasty came into power in 1925 with ambitious plans to modernise the country, including embarking on major infrastructure projects, developing new industries, and establishing a national education system. The modernisation plans also included a ban on the wearing of traditional Islamic clothing. Men were forced to abandon their traditional clothing and wear modern European style suits, and women were forbidden to wear Islamic coverings and veils when leaving their homes. Portraits from this period are clearly distinguishable due to these changes in clothing.

EAP001/1/2 - Group portrait photograph of three women, taken after the first Pahlavi dynasty placed a ban on Islamic coverings and veils. c.1925

 
EAP001/7/1 - Polish refugees in Iran c.1942-1944

The project also digitised a small selection of Abolghasem Jala’s portraits of Polish refugees in Iran. After the invasion of Poland during the Second World War by both the Germans and the Russians in 1939, many Poles were sent to prison camps within the Soviet Union where they remained until after Operation Barbarossa in 1941. The surprise German attack on the Soviet Union and the need for new Soviet allies, led to a reversal in the treatment of Soviet held Polish prisoners of war. The Soviets freed tens of thousands of Poles, granting many of them ‘amnesty’ to form a Polish army which would help fight the Nazis. This ‘army’ (known as the Anders’ Army) were then sent along with many thousands of Polish refugees to Iran, Iraq, and Palestine.  It is thought that between 114,000 and 300,000 Poles were sent to Iran during this period.

These portraits taken by Abolghasem Jala, between 1942-1944, show some of the Polish refugees that migrated to Iran. During this period Abolghasem took thousands of photographs of these refugees at his Sharq photographic studio in Isfahan.

EAP001/7/1 – Polish refugees in Iran c.1942-1944

If you can find a copy it is well worth checking out Parisa Damandan’s book, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan: Faces in Transition, 1920-1950. Parisa was a co-applicant for EAP001, and her book features a number of photographs from this collection as well as many more fantastic portraits and also includes an essay documenting the history of photography in Iran and the Isfahan region. Parisa also has another book worth finding which focuses on Polish refugee children in Isfahan, The Children of Esfahan: Polish Refugees in Iran: Portrait Photographs of Abolqasem Jala, 1942-1945.

Finally, I’ve selected a few photos below that have caught my eye and thought were worth sharing. EAP001 is full of great images however so please click on the link below and have a look for yourself

 
EAP001/16/2 - Commemorating the Day of Ashura at the Imam Reza Shrine, Mashhad [1901], alongside a 2005 image of the Shrine.

Image 2: IA Source at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

 
EAP001/1/1 - Portrait photograph of a young girl. 1953

 
EAP001/6/1 – no details

 
EAP001/7/2 - Traditional sportsman and companions [1940s]

For further information about EAP001/7/2 please look at the following article on Encyclopaedia Iranica

References:

Damandan, Parisa, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan: Faces in Transition, 1920-1950, London: Saqi Books (2004)

Scarce, Jennifer, Isfahan in Camera. 19th Century Persia through the Photographs of Ernst Hoeltzer, London: Aarp (1976)

 

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[1] Scarce, Jennifer, Isfahan in Camera. 19th Century Persia through the Photographs of Ernst Hoeltzer, London: Aarp (1976)

Last month eight collections went up online EAP010, EAP040, EAP105, EAP219, EAP254, EAP341, EAP443 and EAP644.

It was only two months ago that we reached two million images online and this month we are happy to report that we have now broken the three million barrier! This is largely thanks to EAP341 a project which contains around 750,000 images.

EAP341 is a project that preserved printed books and periodicals held in public institutions in Eastern India. Many of the public libraries in that area are now suffering from a financial crisis that makes most of the documents vulnerable to loss or degradation. The project digitised materials from eight public libraries in the districts of Howrah, Hooghly, 24 Parganas North and 24 Parganas South, all located in semi-urban and rural areas within the proximity of Calcutta. This project helped to preserve these materials digitally and make them available to researchers.

EAP341/5/587 Image 5

EAP644 digitised part of the Fouad Debbas collection. This consists of over 3000 photographs which were produced by the Maison Bonfils from 1867-1910.

Established in 1867, the Bonfils house set out the first photographic studio in Beirut. Mr Bonfils and his wife Lydie, apparently the first woman photographer of the area, along with their children succeeded in capturing some fascinating images. These include pictures of a region of immense physical beauty, landscape photos of Beirut and Baalbeck and portraits of different ethnic groups. They also provide a record of rapid socio-economic change during a crucial moment of the region’s history. The Bonfils Debbas collection is an invaluable document registering the history of a region at a crucial crossroads in the wake of great historical upheaval. For more information about the collection have a look at our previous blog ‘The Good Woman named Bonfils’.

EAP644/1/27 Image 11

EAP040 digitised medieval and early modern archival material of the Brasov/Kronstadt and Burzenland region in central Romania.

The material from 14th to 17th centuries from this archive is one of the main sources for Transylvanian history in today’s central Romania. Documents that were digitised included
; ecclesiastical material with focus on the 16th to 17th centuries, the collection of Joseph Trausch (manuscript copies covering the whole period), documents on educational matters focusing on the 16th to 17th centuries, cultural matters (music, liturgy, buildings, local traditions and legends) and correspondence (warfare, defence, political relations).

EAP040/1/110 Image 2

EAP254 digitised the library of the church Romanat Qeddus Mikael Dabre Mehret, Enderta in Ethiopia. The library possesses around 70 codices and includes several valuable manuscripts of high quality, some of them with illuminations and valuable marginalia. The library of Romanat Qeddus Mikael was built up over more than 300 years. The collection builds an indigenous and integral local record in a region important for the history of Ethiopia. The library remains practically unknown and is endangered due to the poor preservation conditions.

EAP254/1/50 – Image 5

EAP010 preserved rare periodical publications from Mongolia. Mongolia underwent significant political and economic change during the collapse of Communism. The euphoria of revolution led to neglect or even intentional eradicating of documents, publications and other materials from socialist times. Political and economic dependence upon the Soviet Union for seven decades and the resulting sudden release from political ties meant that everything related to the Soviet Union and the period of its dominance was subject to denial. In addition, the deep economic crisis in the 1990s meant that cultural issues including the maintenance and development of libraries, publication of books and actions to safeguard the documentary heritage of Mongolia were not the priority for the government or public for a while.

The periodicals digitised cover the transition period of 1990-1995. They document the political changes in Mongolia after the fall of Communism. The project resulted in scanning 39,029 pages from 6,189 issues.

EAP010/1/1/21 Image 1

EAP219 is a project that catalogued and digitally preserved the endangered Nôm archive at the Institute of Social Science Information (ISSI) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Nôm was the national script used in Vietnam for over 1,000 years since the country's independence from China in 939.

The project completed a thorough inventory of the archive and digitised the volumes from the most vulnerable section of the archive. These include village and district records of families, land ownership, real estate and property exchanges, contacts with the royal courts, decrees by various emperors as well as some maps. Since Nôm was the national script used in Vietnam for over 1,000 years, the archives have an inestimable historical value providing, together with Han-Viet records, the main written record of the history and culture of Vietnam for 10 centuries.

EAP219/1/14/5 Image 2

EAP105 digitised the manuscript collections of Drametse Monastery and Ogyen Choling in Bhutan.

Drametse Monastery, founded in 1511 by Ani Choten Zangmo, the grand-daughter of the famous Bhutanese saint Padma Lingpa (1450-1521), is one of the major monasteries in eastern Bhutan.
Drametse's manuscript collection includes the 46-volume rNying ma rGyud 'bum, sixteen volumes of Prajnaparamitasutras and about a hundred and fifty volumes of miscellaneous titles including religious hagiographies, histories, liturgies, meditation manuals and philosophical treatises. Many of the books are written in dbu med script, indicating that the books were most likely brought from Tibet in the distant past.

Ogyen Choling, located in central Bhutan, is a seat of two famous Nyingmapa saints, Longchenpa (1308-1363) and Dorje Lingpa (1346-1405). Although historically a religious establishment, it is now a manor house of the family which claims direct descent from Dorje Lingpa. Its library, housed in three of the five temple rooms in the manor complex, contains several hundred titles of manuscripts ranging from pilgrimage guides to philosophical treatises, including a beautifully executed 21-volume set of Dorje Lingpa's writings. Professor Samten Karmay has recently catalogued the collection highlighting some of the rare works of Zhang Lama Drowai Gonpo (1123-93), Lhodrak Drubchen Namkha Gyaltshan (1326-1401), Wensa Lobzang Dondrub (1504-1566) and Jangchub Tsondru (1817-57). In addition to the manuscripts, Ogyen Choling also owns a large body of books printed from xylographic blocks.

EAP105/2/7/4/15 – Image 2

EAP443 carries on the work of pilot project EAP284, which surveyed records related to the slave trade held at the Sierra Leone Public Archives.

The materials being targeted here include valuable documents of immense importance for research on the transatlantic slave trade and its repercussions. The original Registers of Liberated Africans who were taken off slave ships by the Royal Navy from 1808 to the 1840s document more than 85,000 individuals. In addition, there are Letter books which provide information on the treatment and ‘disposal’ of tens of thousands of “receptive” Africans, court records, treaties with local chiefs, and other documents that are essential materials for any research on Sierra Leone. Moreover, there is important genealogical information for many people in Sierra Leone, including birth and death registers from the 1850s. Additional materials include registers of “foreign” children resident in Freetown, dating from the 1860s onwards, and registers of slaves who had escaped from the interior to Freetown, as well as letter books in Arabic that relate to political and commercial relations with the interior of West Africa in the second half of the 19th century.

More than 170 volumes held in the Public Archives of Sierra Leone were digitised, with over 32,000 images. Collectively, these volumes provide information on the identities, origins and experiences of enslaved Africans forcibly relocated to the British Crown Colony in the nineteenth century. Other volumes relate to the inward migration of people from the colony’s hinterland, including registers of slaves who had escaped from the interior to Freetown. The volumes include series of registers of births and deaths, which are in a particularly fragile and endangered condition.

EAP443/1/17/12 – Image 11

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

Last month seven collections went up online EAP140, EAP184, EAP231, EAP272, EAP454, EAP569 and EAP657.

EAP140 was a project to digitise the Tangut collection held at the Institute of Oriental Studies in St Petersburg.  The Tanguts were a people who established a kingdom during the 10th-13th centuries in present day northwest China. Once the area had been invaded by the Mongols in 1227 the usage of the Tangut language began to decline. These unique historical, literary, and administrative texts are of great value in understanding and preserving a lost writing system and culture. If you haven’t seen it already you can read more about this collection and the Tangut people in our last blog. 

EAP140/1/35 – Image 92

EAP184 digitised items from the Matanzas province in Cuba. The records that were digitised relate to African slaves and their descendants. Collections from seven different archives were digitised, six of these collections came from parish archives; the final collection from the Archives of the Provincial Government of Matanzas. 

During the nineteenth century, Matanzas became the centre of Cuban sugar production, which meant a high demand for slave labour. The territory became the major destination for African slaves in Cuba. The region's archives are very rich in all kinds of information on the African population living in Matanzas from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th century. This includes demographic statistics, information on ethnicity, resistance and occupations of free and enslaved Africans.

EAP184/1/11 Pt 1 – Image 257

EAP231 digitised court records of the Department of State for Justice in Banjul, the Gambia. The collections are valuable for researchers hoping to gain a deeper understanding of how colonial agents and local communities engaged with one another. Court records reveal struggles between men and women, elders and youths, elites and commoners. Since African women could visit colonial courts to seek divorce, court transcripts are one of the few places where historians can hear African women's voices. The records also reveal disputes over land, other forms of property, child custody and many other subjects.

Due to the nature of the material some items in this collection are only available to view via the reading rooms at the British Library.

EAP231/1/1 - Image 177

EAP272 digitised and preserved 1,400 ephemera and 215 manuscripts that came from the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Nepal.

The ephemera are mainly political but also cover religious, social and cultural topics. They are mainly pamphlets and leaflets, with some posters and postcards. The ephemera dating from 1900-1951 represents the last 50 years of the Rana Period.  The remainder date from 1951-1960, this covers the period of Nepal's short stint with parliamentary democracy, until the first elected government was toppled by a coup from King Mahendra in December 1960, replacing the multiparty democracy with his own brand of political system named the 'Panchayat'.

The manuscripts date from 1808 and cover a wide range of subjects such as religion, culture, philosophy, law, medicine, hagiography, natural history, and literature. The project rescued these items from poor storage conditions and ensured their long term preservation.

EAP272/1/1/226 - Image 1

EAP454 was a pilot project which surveyed privately held ecclesiastical documents in Mizoram, India.

The main focus was early religious and related records, particularly English and Welsh missionary records that recorded a history otherwise only transmitted by the then exclusively oral Mizo society. The project’s scope widened with the surprising discovery of hitherto unknown and early collections written in vernacular Mizo. Many of the earliest missionary educated Mizos were prolific writers of letters, manuscripts, diaries, and notebooks. Most of these sources still revolve around the distinctly religious axis of the Project's focus, but from the perspective of the Mizo.

The Project digitised much more material than initially expected; over 10,000 images are now available to view online.

EAP454/2/9 Pt 2 – Image 3

EAP569 identified and collected information on relevant documents about Nzema in Ghana. These documents pertain to the land management system and local power structure that has been in place in Ghana since pre-colonial times and that still plays a fundamental role in Nzema society today.

The project looked at records from the Public Records and Archive Administration Department (PRAAD) in Secondi-Takoradi as well as the Western Nzema Traditional Council Archive in Beyin and the Eastern Nzema Traditional Council Archive in Atuabo (Ellembele District, Eastern Region).

The project was successful in identifying many relevant records, creating a list of these items and packaging the documents in archival materials. The project digitized 46 files (15 in the Eastern Nzema Traditional Council Archive, 31 in the Western Nzema Traditional Council Archive) and generated 5,039 digital photographs, which are now available to view on our website.

Due to the nature of the material some items in this collection are only available to view via the reading rooms at the British Library.

EAP569/1/1/1 (as above) Image 135

EAP657 digitised and preserved a collection of archival material related to Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (9 March 1814–10 March 1861), the famous Ukrainian writer and painter whose literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian writing. His archival collection had been dispersed until recently, and valuable nineteenth century documents had been kept in deteriorating conditions.

The materials digitised reflect different periods of the life of T H Shevchenko. The archival material had been held in different private collections of Shevchenko’s friends and relatives from all over Ukraine until just 10 years ago.

Some of the items in this collection, due to copyright reasons, are only available to view via the reading rooms at the British Library.

EAP657/1/3 – Image 2

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

 

We have another wonderful guest blog, this time by Sam Van Schaik, International Dunhuang Project Research and HE Manager. Sam is also based at the British Library and sits just along the corridor from EAP. His blog is all about the historical context for EAP140 material.

 

The Tangut kingdom is one of the great lost civilisations of Asia. The kingdom, also known as Westen Xia, came to prominence in the 11th century and flourished until the early 13th century, when it was crushed by the armies of Genghis Khan. In that brief span, the Tanguts invented a new script, translated thousands of texts into their language, and pioneered the use of print technology, including moveable type.

Stupas at the northwest corner of Kharakhoto, taken in October 2008. (c) International Dunhuang Project.

Until the beginning of the 20th century the Tanguts were only known through a few scattered references in historical texts. That changed with the excavation of the ancient ruined city of Kharakhoto by the Russian explorer Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (1863-1935). During two visits to the site in 1908 and 1909, Kozlov discovered thousands of ancient manuscripts in Chinese, Tibetan, and an unknown language that would later be identified as Tangut. Along with other artefacts, including beautiful paintings on silk, Kozlov’s discoveries were taken back to St Petersburg, and are now housed in the Hermitage and the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

There are over eight thousand Tangut manuscripts and block printed books from Kharakhoto in the St Petersburg collection. Most of these are Buddhist texts, found when Kozlov was excavating a stupa (a Buddhist reliquary), dating from the 12th and early 13th centuries. The Tangut state was located between China and Tibet, and was influenced equally by these two great Buddhist cultures. Thus the manuscripts contain texts from China, including the literature of the Chan and Huayan schools, and from Tibet, mainly tantric Buddhist practices from India that had only recently arrived in Tibet.

It is a testament to the commitment of the Tangut emperors to Buddhism that the whole of the canon of Buddhist sutras (scriptures recording the words of the Buddha) were translated into Tangut by the 12th century. As we see from the Kharakhoto collections, many of these sutras were copied by hand and printed in expensive editions on fine paper. The Tibetan tantric texts were translated in the late 12th and early 13th centuries due to the increasing influence of Tibetan Buddhists at the Tangut court.

A copy of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra in concertina format. Tang.334/201 EAP140/1/35

A project under the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP140) has now digitized a significant portion of the Tangut manuscript collections at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg. These are manuscripts of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra, "The Great Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom", the most numerous single text in the collection. Just like in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, this massive text was copied extensively for the religious merit thought to accrue from copying scripture.

These copies of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra are now available on the EAP website and will also be made available on the websites of the International Dunhuang Project. The high-quality colour images of these manuscripts make it possible to appreciate the variety of writing styles and book formats used in the Tangut kingdom. Book forms include concertina manuscripts like the one pictured above, and scrolls (see below).

A scroll with a blue cloth cover. Tang.335/2.

The technology of woodblock printing was being used in China and Central Asia from the 7th century, and the production of both printed books and manuscripts continued in the following centuries. Though printing was a well-established technique in the Tangut kingdom, the great majority of these copies of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra were written by hand. Many of the manuscripts also have a block-printed frontispiece showing a scene of the Buddha teaching, an interesting combination of print and manuscript technologies. The fact that the same print is attached to many of the manuscripts suggests that they were produced around the same time. The Buddhist dynasties of China and Tibet sponsored major projects of copying the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, and it is likely that the Tangut emperors wanted to show that they could do the same.

A block-printed illustration, the frontispiece to a Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtra. Tang.334/204  EAP140/1/38

Last month five collections have gone up online EAP001, EAP038, EAP051, EAP117 and EAP458. These collections come from Iran, Cameroon, Indonesia and finally two from India. I am happy to say that with these new additions our online collections have grown to over two million images!

EAP001 was, as its number suggests, our first ever project. It was a pilot project which was interested in photography in Iran at the turn of the 19th century. It located photographic material from the 19th and early 20th century which was being kept in precarious conditions or in family collections. The project copied a sample of items and located many more for future possible digitisation projects.

EAP001/1/1 - Image 6

EAP038 surveyed and digitised pre-1947 Telugu printed materials in India. It located books and periodicals published during the 19th and first half of the 20th century which had been written in the Telugu language in South India. The first stirrings of cultural and religious renaissance were felt in the Telugu speaking districts of Madras Presidency under the British rule. Expressions of social and cultural interaction between the East and the West can be seen in Telugu print culture. From the revival of medical knowledge to various forms of literary genres such as classical Prabandha, Ithihasa and Puranic tradition and Panchangas [from 1860s] and Satakas and also western forms like novels, short stories, poems and drama.

EAP038/1/18 - Image 107 

EAP051 aimed to preserve records which are written in Bamum script. This is an indigenous African writing system, from the Cameroon Grassfields. The project digitised collections of the Bamum Palace Archive, It also acquired relevant material in danger throughout the Bamum Kingdom and beyond, this material was digitised and deposited at the Bamum Palace Archives.

One book chronicles the arrival of the first German military officer and trader. Other books are devoted to the founding of the kingdom, to a new Bamum religion (fusing Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs), to other topics such as traditional medicine. One family’s collection included early Bamum script on banana leaves. Another collection is particularly important, containing thousands of documents on family and kingdom history, transcripts of speeches given by the Bamum King in the early twentieth century, commentaries on Islam and magic, and many beautiful maps of the Bamum Kingdom with place names and geographic features identified in the indigenous Bamum script.

EAP051/1/1/11/5 – Image 8

EAP117 digitised rare ancient manuscripts and artefacts from the 14th to the 20th century in Kerinca on the highlands of the Sumatra in Indonesia. The project digitised 65 private collections that contain information about an area of which little knowledge exists. The records held in private collections are often open to physical danger or degradation; this project helped ensure that the information contained in these rare documents is preserved and made available to a wide audience.

 

 

 

EAP117/3/1/20 Image 4

The final project, EAP458, digitised records containing information about the Tamil region in India.

The documents are scattered in the homes of Tamil villagers. This material will open a new avenue of analysis at the level of micro-history of rural India, a field for which there is a lack of research material. The project liaised with record holders to survey and digitise their materials, aiding both in the preservation and dissemination of these important documents.

EAP458/17/2/24 Image 2

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

We have another wonderful guest blog this month, this time by Hans Berger who was involved with EAP177 and EAP326, two wonderful photographic projects from Laos. I will let him tell you all about the person who was the inspiration behind it all...

Pha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela (1920-2007)

Theravada monk and abbot, collector of Buddhist photographs of Laos

Portrait of Pha Khamchan by Hans Georg Berger 1996

From the 7th-9th July, Buddhist monks and laypeople of Luang Prabang in Northern Laos commemorate Pha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela, a highly venerated abbot who passed away seven years ago, and who has been the key figure in a research project of the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Pha Khamchan collected Buddhist Photographs of Laos for over 70 years and saved them during difficult times. In 2006, he agreed to a project of digitisation that now makes a unique body of Lao Buddhist photographs available for research, both inside and outside  Laos. With photographer Hans Georg Berger, he created the Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang that now holds more than 35.000 historic photographs and related documents.

Pha Khamchan and his monastic community in 1996

The digitised photographs are available through the EAP website and at the National Library of Laos. The originals are kept in Luang Prabang.

Buddhist ceremonies take place at Vat Saen Sukharam, a historic monastery of the World Heritage Town of Luang Prabang. Led by Pha One Keo Kittibhaddo, these ceremonies are organised by Pha Khamchan's disciple, Pha Buavan Punnasaro.

Commemoration of Pha Khamchan at the Buddhist Archive of Photography in 2010.

The people of Luang Prabang honour a monk whose conduct and spiritual teaching has been exemplary, as was his profound knowledge of the ancient Lao culture and of its unique traditions and festivals which form the Lao identity.

 

Do have a look at the fascinating film A  Theravada Vision that shows Hans Berger and the monks preserving the photographic archive.

 

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www.hansgeorgberger.de

www.ananthabooks.com

 
We are very lucky to have another guest blog, this time Dr Irina Pochinskaya who was the grant-holder for EAP556 will talk about the fascinating items that makes up part of the collection for this project.

Staff of the Laboratory: Sitting left to right: P. Mangilev, I. Pochinskaya (head of the Laboratory), N. Anufrieva, N. Shcherbakova. Standing left to right: S. Beloborodov, Iu. Borovik, A. Palkin.

Teaching exhibition at the Laboratory.

The Collection of manuscripts and old-printed books at the Laboratory of Studies in Archaeography of the Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, consists of almost 6000 biblio artifacts of the Ancient Russian tradition and has its roots in Byzantine culture.

The books of the Laboratory collection.

In Russia this tradition is kept and developed by Old-Believers, representatives of a social-religious movement, which appeared as a result of the 17th century split of the Russian Church.

There are 3876 manuscript items in the Laboratory. 19 items are dated to the 15th – 16th centuries. A particularly interesting manuscript from this date is a Gospel (1530s), it contains a signature by the Archbishop of Novgord, Macariy (who later became the Archbishop of metropolitan Moscow and then of all of Russia) and is dated 8 November 1540. Another rare manuscript is a Service to the Icon of Vladimir Mother of God (early 16th century).

Service to Vladimir Icon of Mother of God, early 16^th century.

There are a large number of “sborniki” (collections) of different works and church services within the 17th century books. This includes an entire row of unique manuscripts such as the Chronograph (a 1617 edition and a manuscript dated to the 1620s) and “Ustav” (Order) of Cyrillo-Belozersky monastery, one of the largest in Russia.

Works of N.G. Spafariy, a well-known 17th century writer and diplomat, were widely known throughout the Urals and Siberia and the Laboratory has a collection of Spafariy’s works and translations. Of particular importance is “Titulyarnik” – a handbook for diplomats written in 1672. Our example was made in the 1680s.

 
Titulyarnik. Manuscript, 1680s.

A significant proportion of the 17th century biblio artifacts are manuscripts containing spiritual chants. Melodies in these books were written with special signs known as “kryuki” (hooks) which came to Russia from Byzantium.

There are many books in the 18^th century manuscript collection. They are thematic compilations of extracts from the Holy Scripture and are eschatological, educational and hagiographical in nature. There are also works of the Church Fathers and original Old-Believers. There are also unique manuscripts, such as the Cosmography (1750s-1760s), which is a historical-geographical essay containing descriptions of countries from all the continents and of course a very detailed description of places in Russia. The description is so comprehensive that we can almost guess the author and the sources he used.

Cosmography. Manuscript 1750s-1760s.

An illuminated manuscript of the 1770s deserve special mention. It contains extracts from the book “Prolog”  which illustrates the suffering and torture of saints, making it an anthology of Medieval torture.

The collection of extracts from Prolog Manuscript, 1770s.

There are many collections of 18^th-20^th century services, prayers and canons that were necessary for domestic rituals and services.

Oktoikh. Manuscript, late 19^th century.

During this time, the number of original Old-Believers’ works increased, including essays on the history of the movement. There is a row of 20^th century personal archives from leaders of Old-Believers community. Therefore the collection of 19^th-20^th centuries material gives us a rich resource for studying the history of local Old-Believers and their contemporary condition.

There are 67 old-printed books from the 16^th century. Among these are the first books printed in Moscow: The Lenten Triodion (c.1555-1556) and the Gospel (c.1558-59). They have no publisher’s imprint, so the creators remain anonymous.

Gospel. Moscow, Anonymous typography, 1550s.

There is also the first accurately dated Russian old-printed book – The Apostle dated to 1564 (2 items). The collection also holds the first books published in Ukrainian and Belarussian typographies.

The 17^th century books consist mainly of books published before the Church Reform of the 1650s-1660s which divided  the Russian Orthodox Church creating the oppositional Old-Believers’ movement. There are also Ukrainian and Belarussian publications, which were in demand amongst the Old-Believers.

Gospel. Nizhniy Novgorod, 1613.

The book collection of  the 18^th-20^th centuries mainly consists of books published by Old-Believers. During the 18^th to early 20^th centuries Old-Believers printed books mainly in typographies of the Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth) in Warsaw, Vilna, Grodno, Pochaev and Suprasl, the books were then illegally exported to Russia. The Old-Believers book publishing from the second half of 19^th century to the early 20^th century was organized in Russia, but was illegal. In 1905 the government legalized it.

The Laboratory staff actively studies biblio artifacts. You can see the list of their works on the website of the Laboratory.

Due to the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library (project EAP556 “Book heritage of Ural Old-Believers”) digitisation of the most valuable biblio artifacts at the Laboratory started. The purchase of acid-free book boxes was also carried out under the grant.