Supported by European expertise, the House of Manuscripts pursues a double mission: to digitize its entire collection, but also to restore works, parchments and calligraphy boards damaged by humidity, insects, or quite simply human use in the over the centuries.

"Some manuscripts date back almost a thousand years," the director of the institution, Ahmed al-Aliaoui, told AFP.

"There are writings in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew or Kurdish, illustrating an immense cultural diversity".

Leaning over the elegant black ink calligraphy of an 18th century Ottoman astronomy textbook, he recites his comments in English, repeated in Arabic by a translator.

In an adjoining room, a restorer in a white coat dusts a calligraphy board with gnawed edges with a brush.

Her neighbor uses a cutting stylus on "Japan paper".

The thin pieces will be pasted to fill holes in the pages of a 17th century book in Persian dedicated to Ashura, a Shiite religious commemoration.

"To live longer"

Each intervention must "preserve the old appearance" of a structure, while "reducing the damage suffered, so that it can live longer", explains Tayba Ahmed, 30, restorer for three years.

"You can spend several months with the same book. It may not have a cover, the pages are detached, you have to sew and make a leather cover", she lists.

"When we see the final result, we are obviously happy".

A manuscript being restored at the House of Manuscripts in Baghdad, Iraq, December 6, 2022 © Sabah ARAR / AFP

Thanks to Italian funding, light boards serving as a workbench, ceiling lights and removable lamps fixed to the desk were installed.

Curator Marco Di Bella emphasizes "the approach to conservation".

"The most difficult (...) is to decide how to intervene on a manuscript. You have to respect its history as much as possible".

This involves "reintroducing" certain materials, such as starch, "a traditional adhesive which was abandoned in the conservation world but has come back into fashion", continues the expert.

In an Iraq that bears the scars of decades of conflict, the House of Manuscripts has been spared.

Even when the Baghdad Museum was ransacked in the chaos following the US invasion in 2003.

“Before the war, the manuscripts had been moved to an underground shelter in the suburbs,” recalls Mr. Aliaoui.

Residents and officials had protected the area from looting attempts, he said.

"Before Paper"

The institution houses calligraphy boards dating back "to the first century of the Hegira (7th century) written in Koufi on parchments, even before the manufacture of paper", enthuses Mr. Aliaoui.

There are millennium-old manuscripts, dating "from the beginnings of the Abbasid era", when Baghdad began to manufacture its own paper, adds the director of the House of Manuscripts.

He hopes to restore up to 100 works per year, but he deplores insufficient funding, stressing in particular that he only has four scanners for the digitization work.

The House of Manuscripts, in Baghdad, Iraq, December 5, 2022 © Sabah ARAR / AFP

In October, the institution signed a partnership with the National Library of France (BNF), thanks to financial support from the Aliph Foundation, the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones.

"The collection of the House of Manuscripts is a leading collection in Iraq and in the region", recognizes Zakaria Haffar, Iraq project manager at the BNF.

By way of comparison, he recalls that the BNF preserves around 7,000 manuscripts in its Arabic collection.

In addition to deliveries of material - conservation boxes, Japanese paper, leather - the cooperation will allow an "exchange of skills" in restoration, assistance with digitization, but also the identification and cataloging of collections, explains Mr. Haffar .

“It is the heritage of our country”, summarizes Mayassa Chehab, 52 years old and restaurateur for 26 years.

"As it has been handed down to us, we must pass it on to future generations."

© 2022 AFP