National Library of China Repairing More Than 200 Precious Chinese Western Literatures
| Several days ago, an Exhibition of Protected Chinese Western Literatures was held at National Library of China. The exhibition showed the fruits of National Library of China in the collection, storage, repair, protection, sorting and research of Chinese western literatures. Now, National Library of China has repaired more than 200 precious Chinese western literatures, thus greatly supporting relevant academic research and cultural inheritance. Since the 21st century, a large quantity of ancient literatures has been discovered in the Hetian Area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, thus causing academic concerns. Since 2005, National Library of China has collected more than 700 Chinese western literatures for 6 times, among which, there are 370 fragments written on paper and silk materials, in addition to inscribed wooden slips, private mails, and documents written on birch barks. Written from the 4th century to the 10th century, these literatures cover government documents, private mails, contracts, classic books and Buddhist Scriptures in Chinese, Sanskrit, Kharosthi, Khotan script, Qiuci language, Turkic script, Jewish Persian and Tibetan. They are precious historical materials about the Silk Road and the history of China’s foreign relations, equally important to Dunhuang Documents and Turfan Unearthed Documents. Most of the Chinese western literatures written on paper and silk materials collected by National Library of China have troubles in different degrees, such as surface stains, crispness, smoke traces, rottenness, flocculation, folding, curling, damage by moths or worms, and double-layer adhesion, and some troubles may even deteriorate. Therefore, they are in urgent need to be repaired and protected. As an institution with the qualification to repair movable cultural relics, National Library of China cooperated with experts in Chinese western literature and ancient book repair to study and formulate repair schemes, aiming to maximally show the historical information in the literatures when implementing effective protection. |
| Source: http://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2015-05/17/nw.D110000gmrb_20150517_3-04.htm |