18.049 new on WWW: Library of Congress: Selections from Naxi

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Jun 05 2004 - 01:50:35 EDT

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                    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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