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Libraries/Writings

 
Author Assif
Partaker
#1 | Posted: 30 Apr 2008 18:25 
Aren't libraries a specific sort of sites conserving written texts? I would suggest merging the two categories together.

Author Solivagant
Partaker
#2 | Posted: 1 May 2008 05:13 
I wonder if these 2 concepts are worth "unpacking". Do they not encompass 2 different "ideas"- I had raised it before with Els (before we had the forum!).

I think that "scripts" are an interesting and worthwhile "connection" - just where can you go to see the different writing systems from around the world? This is what the "writing" connection was orignally meant to be I believe. As such only sites which are significant in that sense should be included (again the defnintion needs "beefing up") - the text should highlight the script concerned. Byblos, Jelling, Bisotun (et al) are certainly in this category

Libraries are collections of "books" (in the widest sense) - so Haeinsa Temple with its wood blocks is a "Library". There may indeed be some "libraries" which are also significant because they are a repository of an early script.

By the way I would add Mogao to "Early Mechanical printing" - The Diamond Sutra which came from there may be in the British Museum but it is the earliest example of mechanical printing - again the text could explain the link

Author PTK
Partaker
#3 | Posted: 1 May 2008 23:25 
I suggested El Escorial and Salamanca under libraries but it still hasn't been added. Any reason for disqualification?

Author elsslots
Admin
#4 | Posted: 2 May 2008 02:03 
Please don't worry if it doesn't appear right away - I've got 9 pages of suggestions left & am travelling at the moment. If I'm thinking about disqualifying sites or am not sure, I will post it on this forum.

Author elsslots
Admin
#5 | Posted: 5 May 2008 02:55 
I've now split the connections into 'Scripts' and 'Libraries', and rearranged some of the entries.

I didn't find an Egyptian WHS directly linked to the history of Egyptian hieroglyphic script. Any ideas?

Author Assif
Partaker
#6 | Posted: 6 May 2008 10:08 
I would like to join Els in her question and apply it to the Maya/Chinese/Mesopotamian hieroglyphs too.

Author Solivagant
Partaker
#7 | Posted: 6 May 2008 15:19 | Edited by: Solivagant 
Well I guess the 3 "Egyptian civilisatiion" sites in Egypt together with Gebel Barkal in Sudan could all be said to show Egyptian "script" but if I had to choose one I would link the subject to Ancient Thebes - it was here that Champollion came and developed some of the ideas which led to his decipherment of the script - and took away wall sections from the tomb of Seti I !!!!

I have seen some enigmatic tablets at Meroe showing its own script - but it is only on Sudan's T list

Similarly all Mayan sites that I have visited have some "glyphs" providing egs of the script but as far as I am aware Tikal, Quiriuga and Copan are the most significant for that fact

Of the great Mespotamian sites in Iraq only Assur has yet made it to the list and I don't know if there is any "Cuneiform" in situ at them anyway - it seems unlikely as the buildings were of mud brick and had badly weathered apart from where they have been rather unsympathetically "restored" eg in Saddam's time - (or since "blown up") -unfortunately I haven't been there. I have seen the museum in Aleppo which has what it claims is the earliest example of an Alphabet on clay tablets taken from nearby Ugarit (only on Syria's T list) - and Ebla (also on Syria's T list) is famous for its Cuneiform tablets (I have visited the ruins but there is nothing much to see). But of course "movable objects" can't be WHS (unless they in an inscribed building as per the Haeinsa Wood blocks! These I suppose are not strictly part of that inscription although they are on Memory of the World)

So what of Chinese? The "forest of Stelae" in a museum in Xian contains the most amazing collection of chinese script but again isn't part of the WHS. I don't know of any particular WHS "famous" for in situ chinese script - but Els should be the expert there with her recent grand tour!

And what about the wonderful Arabic calligraphy on the domes at eg Isfahan?? does that nt deserve a connection??

Author Assif
Partaker
#8 | Posted: 6 May 2008 16:42 
According to Wikipedia Assur is a source of more than 16000 cuneiform tablets, so I guess it could be well included in the connection.

Author elsslots
Admin
#9 | Posted: 6 May 2008 23:34 
For Chinese I've already included Yin Xu, the finding place of the oracle bones (very early Chinese writing) and a site totally dedicated to ancient writing. Great place, see my review.
The Forest of Stelae in Xi'an would be another good option (but still only a tentative site).

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