Tajikistan: Historical Manuscripts Go Digital

Tajik officials say they have digitized about 500 ancient Persian-Tajik manuscripts, and will soon make the texts available via the Internet.

The collection features unique texts that date back to the 10th century onwards, when Tajikistan was an eastern outpost of the Persian Empire. The manuscripts cover a variety of subjects from arithmetic to fortune telling and many include miniature illustrations.

"The scope of these manuscripts is multifaceted. They contain information about the sciences, arts and industries that prevailed among the peoples of the East," said Mavzuna Abdurakhmanova, the project's coordinator.

More than 10,000 manuscripts are stored at various locations across Tajikistan. The project to digitize a portion of them, the first of its kind in Tajikistan, was funded by the Open Society Institute and draws on the collections held by the Institute of Oriental Studies, Tajikistan, and the Tajik National Library. Currently the digitized texts are available on compact discs from the Manuscripts Foundation of Tajikistan in Dushanbe.