QNL holds training on antique parchment conservation in Tunisia
Qatar National Library’s (QNL) Preservation and Conservation Regional Centre for Arab Countries and the Middle East, organised a regional training course on the restoration and conservation of antique parchment.
The six-day course was held in collaboration with the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts (NLPCPM) in Kairouan, Tunisia and Unesco.
Held at the NLPCPM, which contains one of the largest collections of parchments in the world, the course provided participants from a number of Arab countries – including Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Libya and Algeria – with practical information about the restoration and preservation of ancient parchments, as well as lectures on the development of manuscripts and writing on parchments.
The ancient library of Kairouan, affiliated with the NLPCPM, is notable for having a substantial part of its collection written on parchment. This collection of parchments is one of the largest and bestknown in the Arab and Islamic world. It is made up of three integral sections: documents and legal instruments, books on the principles of jurisprudence (the earliest of which go back to 231 AH / 846 CE), and finally, elegant copies of the Holy Qur’an written on parchment, whose combined folios number more than 39,000.
QNL, in its role supporting the preservation of documentary heritage in the Arab region, conducts programmes and professional workshops to raise the capabilities and skills of workers in the fields of conservation and preservation. With stateof-the-art laboratories for conservation and restoration and an advanced scientific laboratory equipped with the most important technologies, QNL’s experts can conduct studies and research on the components of manuscripts such as dyes, inks and paper.