Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 49.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:36:05 +0100
From: "Laura Gottesman" <lgot@loc.gov>
Subject: Library of Congress: Selections from the Naxi Manuscript
Collection Now Online
Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection, a presentation of unique
items from the Library of Congress's Asian Division, is now available on
the Library's Global Gateway Web site
at: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/naxihtml/naxihome.html
Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection features ceremonial writings
of the Naxi people of China's Yunnan Province. The Library of Congress's
Naxi collection is the largest outside of China, and is considered one of
the finest in the world. The Naxi use a unique pictographic writing system
that is similar to the ancient Egyptian and Mayan writing systems. It is
the only living pictographic language in the world today. This online
presentation features 185 manuscripts, a 39½ -foot funerary scroll and an
annotated catalog of the entire collection.
The Naxi are one of fifty-six ethnic national minorities in China. Located
in the remote mountain valleys of the Yunnan province in southwest China
near the Tibetan and Burmese borders, the Naxi Kingdom flourished from the
eighth century until 1724, when it came under direct Chinese rule. Today
the Naxi population is estimated at 295,000.
The manuscripts included in this online presentation are a small sample of
the 3342 total items housed in the Library of Congress's Asian Division.
This is the first time that a large collection of Naxi manuscripts has been
cataloged, selectively digitized, and published on the Web. The Web site
also includes a special presentation of essays detailing the acquisition
and development of this manuscript collection. Selections from the Naxi
Manuscript Collection should help to increase the understanding of this
unique piece of human heritage.
The Library of Congress's Global Gateway Web site of international
collections and links to international Web sites is available at
http://international.loc.gov/. Selections from the Naxi Manuscript
Collection may be found under the heading "Individual Digital Collections."
Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway
inquiry form at: http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html.
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