Fridrik Thordarson
77?^ Ossetic Bäkh Fäldisyn Funeral Rites
Bäkh Fäldisyn ("Horse Dedication" , German "Roßweilie") is ttie name of a funeral rite which was practised by the Ossetes at the burial of chieftains until recent times. Similar rites were
common among neighbouring Caucasian peoples. These ceremonies have been referred to by
various scholars since the early 19th century; the first text was published by A. Schiefner in 1863, but since then other text variants have appeared in print.
Bäkh Fäldisyn is a nominal compound, consisting of bäkh "horse" and fäldisyn "to consecrate, esp. to a dead person or the realm of the dead; to create" (< Ir. *pari- + dais-
"to show", cf. Skt. pari-disäti "to announce").
At the ceremony a horse is dedicated to the use of the soul on its way to the netherworld.
Great importance is attached to the qualities of the horse. It is not sacrificed, but after the funeral it is subject to certain taboos. In the same way the widow is dedicated to the needs
of her dead husband; human sacrifices are not recorded in modern times. Simultaneously a
sermon of some length is declaimed. The language is in part archaic and characterized by
conventional phrases which recur with little variation from sermon to sermon. No doubt we
have to do with an oral tradition that has been handed down, with gradual modifications, during the centuries. The reciter — the Bäkh Fäldisakh — is not a professional priest, but the phraseology and the length of the sermon presuppose some kind of schooling.
The sermon gives a description of the joumey of the soul to the land of the dead, Dzänät ("Paradise"). There is some variation regarding the visions met by the soul, but in all essentials both the visions and the eschatologieal notions they reflect are identical. The joumey consists of three stages:
1) The dead man crosses a bridge, which is a dangerous enterprise. In some texts he here
meets a gate-keeper, Aminon, who asks questions about his behaviour while alive. In other texts these questions are put by some other mythological figure after the bridge has been crossed. The answer is intended to exemplify the ideal of aurea mediocritas.
Sometimes the bridge is placed after the visions of stage two; but it is evident that it is an indispensable part of the joumey.
2) On his further joumey the dead man meets a number of people who suffer punishment
or receive reward for their actions while alive, a kind of moral paradeigmata. As to the actions, the texts may vary, but it is always a question of social duties which have been kept or neglected. The visions are explained by an interpreter in a dialogue with the soul. On the whole, dialogues play a considerable role in the texts.
3) The soul arrives in Dzänät where it is usually received by Barastyr, the Lord of the
Dead. Sometimes it joins one or more of the heroes of the Nart epos. Occasionally, Christ is met at this place.
Sermons of this kind seem to have been alien to the funeral rites of the neighbouring peoples;
at least, they have not been recorded.
The parade of rewards and punishments has its counterpart in the legends of the joumey of
Soslan, the Nart hero, to the netherworid, where he seeks the help of his dead wife to
remarry. On his way he meets the same visions of reward and punishment as are found in the
A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII Intemational Congress for Asian and Nonh African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30lh August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).
© 1992 Franz Stcincr Verlag Stuttgart
funeral sermons. These are explained to him by his wife in a phraseology which is mostly identical with that of the Bäkh Fäldisyn interpreter. It is tempting to believe that both Soslan's "Katabasis" and the funeral sermon reflect the same oral visionary traditions, and that both are related to old shamanistic practices. The visions described by the Bäkh Fäldisag would thus be derived from shamanistic rites where the shaman accompanied the soul on its joumey to the land of the dead, in a way that is well-known all over the Eurasian steppes, and that seems to be reflected by Herodotus' account of the sweating bath as a part of the Scythian funeral customs (IV, 71 ff.). Both Herodotus and archaeological excavations in the
Ponto-Caspian area attest to the role of horses in the funeral rites of antiquity. The
replacement of the sanguinary sacrifices of ancient times by a symbolic consecration may be ascribed to Christian (and Islamic?) influence in the Middle Ages.
Esther Jacobson
From Mythic Symbol to Narrative Structure Landscape Representation in the Art of Scytho-Siberians
This paper considers the evolution of Scytho-Siberian artistic references to landscape and their underlying concepts. The assumption here is that the natural world was a primary sphere of reference for the early nomads, but that its character evolved in form and meaning.
Within early Scytho-Siberian burials (eighth to fifth centuries B.C.) are included images of leaves, plant parts and individual animals. By the late fifth to early fourth centuries B.C., there began to appear a fuller representation of plants and trees as indicators of a coherent landscape setting, as well as animals joined in psychological relationships. By the fourth century B.C., there emerged coherent framed settings for human and animal interaction.
Finally, in the Issyk headdress and its presumed analogues, one finds the fully articulated
mountainous landscape setting. These changes suggest a transifion away from concem with
mythic symbols existing in absolute space (that is, from a mythopoeic universe) to narrative stmctures lodged within constrained and qualified space.
A similar transformation may be documented in petroglyphic remains from Siberia in the first millenium B.C. There one detects a sequential pattem: from the juxtaposition of individual unrelated images to the creation of narrative scenes including animals and humans. Although these petroglyphs almost never contain reference to trees or to the character of landforms, their increasing reference to psychological interaction indicates a developing concem with significant space.
One is thus led to hypothesize that the mythopoeic universe of the early nomads was
gradually replaced by a universe in which space had limitation and distinction, in which the
principle actor assumed a human form, and in which relationships between animals and
humans were charged by the psychological tension characteristic of narrative. This hypothesis is tentatively confirmed by an examination of the archaic Siberian epic (Mongol uliger and
Yakut olongkho). Here one finds the gradual transformation of the heroic figure from
shaman, to hunter, to warrior; of helping spirits from zoomorphic to anthropomorphic form;
and of the shamanic journey through vast space to the heroic joumey, earth-bound and
accomplished on steed. Within this transformation of the archaic epic, believed to have
occurred during the later first millenium B.C., the character of space emerged as constrained, A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30th August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).
© 1992 Franz Stcincr Verlag Stuttgart
and as marked by signifying trees, plants, or other elements. In other words, the archaic epic,
like the archeological record of the early nomadic period, documents the appearance of
narrative structures and narrative space out of an earlier mythopoeic universe.
It is apparent that the early nomadic conception and representation of landscape was bound to a changing order of society. The gradual constraining and marking of spatial order, the
emergence of psychological interaction and narrative structures imply an increasing
understanding of significant space as earth-bound. Similarly, the emergence of narrative centered on the human actor may well reflect the replacement of shamanic power by tribal leadership buttressed by new pattems of lineal descent and political patronage.
Hans-Wilhelm Haussig
Die ältesten Namen der Seide und die Wanderungen iranischer Stämme
aus Mittelasien nach Südrußland
Einen Zusammenhang der Namen für Seide mit denen von Völkem in Zentralasien gibt es
nur dort, wo sich auch eine Ableitung des Namens nachweisen läßt. Das ist bei den Namen
Serikon und Seres der Fall. Von Ptolemaios wurde das Tarimbecken wegen der dort
wohnenden Seres Serike genannt. Zu den östlichen Nachbam von Serike gehörten nach ihm
die Sinoi, die nach seiner Angabe auf einem anderen Kartenblatt mit den Chinesen identisch sein müssen.
Untergmppen der Seres waren nach Strabo die Tocharoi und die Frounoi. Nach Ptolemaios
gehörten auch die erst von Alkman und dann von Herodot genannten Issedonen zu ihnen.
Über die Tocharoi ist durch Strabo weiter bekannt, daß sie und die Pasianoi im Jahre 129 v.
Chr. zusammen mit den Asioi und Sakarauloi den Jaxartes überschritten. Von ihnen ließen
sich die Tocharoi zwischen Hindukusch und Amu darya nieder, wo ihr Name noch in
islamischer Zeit dieses Gebiet bezeichnet.
Der Name Frourwi läßt sich im Grenzgebiet von Pamir- und Karakommgebirge auf einer
Münze in der Form From nachweisen. From wird in einer köktürkischen Inschrift mit
Pur(i)m wiedergegeben. Es ist das gleiche Wort, das bei den Chinesen in der Umschreibung Fu-lin das oströmische Reich bezeichnet.
Über die Issedonen, das dritte der zu den Serem gehörenden Völker, ist bekannt, daß sie
östlich der Argyppaioi wohnten, die Herodot als in Jurten wohnende Nomaden schildert. Sie
waren jenes Volk, das die Skythen nach Mittelasien zur Auswandemng zwang, von wo aus
sie weiter nach Südmßland zogen. Demnach wird man ein Gebiet im Norden des
Tarimbeckens als ihre Heimat annehmen müssen.
Wenn Ptolemaios das Tarimbecken als Serike bezeichnet, gibt er damit den Hinweis auf die
Herkunft der Seide, die Strabo als Serika dermata kennt. Wie Pelliot gezeigt hat, läßt sich Seres nicht mit dem chinesischen Wort für Seide, das in altchinesischer Aussprache Sy (Sseu) lautet, in Verbindung bringen. Das hier fehlende chinesische Wort für Seide ist in Issedon,
einer Verbindung aus Sy und Thauna, enthalten. Hier ist also, ebenso wie bei Sindon, das
sich aus Sin, der durch Ptolemaios bekannten Bezeichnung für China, und dem sakischen
Wort für Kleidung/Tuch, Thauna, zusammensetzt, einem "chinesischen Tuch" die Rede.
Anders als bei Serikon, das einen Handelsartikel der Serer bezeichnet, ist hier also zwischen A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidi (Hrsg.): Proceedings of Ihc XXXII Inlemational Congress for Asian and North Afriean Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30lh August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).
© 1992 Franz Stcincr Verlag Stultgart
einem "cliinesisciien Tucii" und einem "Seidentucli" zu unterscheiden. (Der Volcal im Anlaut
des Wortes in der griechischen Überlieferung erklärt sich wahrscheinlich aus der
Doppelkonsonanz, die man nur durch Vorsetzen eines Vokals aussprechen konnte.) Herodots Beschreibung der Schädelbestattung der Issedonen wird durch die Auffindung entsprechender Gräber mit chinesischer Seide indirekt bestäfigt.
Von den schon erwähnten Tocharoi ist nach Ptolemaios bekannt, daß ein Teil von ihnen im
Osten von Droana (Tun-huang) wohnte. Ihr Name wurde dort Taguroi ausgesprochen. Dort
lagen wohl auch die ältesten Wohnsitze jener Tourkoi, die wegen ihrer Kunst der
Eisenbearbeitung von den Juan-Juan in den Altai geholt wurden, von wo aus sie nach der
Vemichtung der Juan-Juan ein eigenes Reich gründeten. Sie hatten mit den Serem nicht nur den Verkauf der Seide, sondem auch die Herstellung hochwertiger Eisenwaren gemeinsam.
Wenn also der Herrscher der Türken den aus Seres und Yabgu zusammengesetzten Titel
Silgibu trägt, kann man vermuten, daß das köktürkische Wort für Seide, Torqu, wie Serikon
aus Seres auf den Volksnamen Tourkoi zurückgeht und das gleiche Volk, die Serer,
bezeichnet, wobei die Verwendung von Sil statt Sir durch eine auch in Fluß- und
Landesnamen nachzuweisende parthische Aussprache zu erklären ist.
R.E.Emmerick
TTie Crosby Collection
My search for the Crosby collection began in 1968 when Mrs Joanna Williams drew my
attention to the possibility that Khotanese manuscripts may have been among the manuscripts
from Khotan deposited by Oscar Terry Crosby in the Library of Congress as recorded in his
book Tibet arui Turkestan published in New York and London in 1905, pp. 60 ff. Crosby
wrote: '1 have placed these in the Congressional Library, with request that they be made available, as far as possible, to any inquiring paleograph.'
On the plate opposite page 130 of his book Crosby reproduced photographically two of the
fragments, both written in Sanskrit. The large fragment shown completely with ten lines
broken on the right is a Prajüäpäramitä text. The same plate shows the right hand side of
another fragment of Buddhist Sanskrit. A further plate is found opposite page 136, also
reproducing part of the manuscript collection. The piece partly showing at the bottom right
is the left hand portion of the same Buddhist Sanskrit fragment as that whose right hand
portion was shown on the plate opposite page 130. Above it is shown the left hand part of
folio 3 from the same manuscript. The large piece on the left with four lines is also Sanskrit.
It is one of several fragments belonging to a manuscript containing many Buddha names.
In the hope that it would encourage scholars to look out for any clue to the whereabouts of the Crosby collection I published an account of my search (pp. 175 ff.) in an article entitied 'The historical importance of the Khotanese manuscripts', pp. 167-177 in Prolegomena to the sources on the history of pre-lslamic Central Asia, ed. J.Harmatta, Budapest 1979.
Essentially the matter rested there until I discussed the problem with Gene Smith in Kyoto in 1983. He was of the opinion that the material must be still somewhere in the Library of Congress and said that he would look into the matter when he visited the United States. This
he duly did and I received from him a letter dated 27.6.1984, from which I quote: 'the
"Crosby deposit" surfaced on the 22nd of June. ...Susan Meinheit, the secretary of the South A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30lh August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).
© 1992 Franz Stcincr Verlag Stuttgart
Asian Section of tiie Asian Division wlio is very interested in Tibet, noticed the packet on the
shelf in a caged area of the Asian Division. She had a file which I had given her on the
problem including your article and remembered your interests. '
In 1985 1 received from the Library of Congress a microfilm of all the manuscript fragments belonging to the Crosby collection. The microfilm carries the note: 'Acquired in Khotan,
Central Asia by Oscar Terry Crosby in 1903 and deposited in the Library of congress in
1904. There are in the neighborhood of 150 fragments. They appear roughly in order of size, from smaller to larger. The two sides of each fragment are copied one immediately after the other. '
It was decided to exhibit some of the fragments of the Crosby collection in the Library of
Congress exhibifion 'Discovering India' that was held from 20 June to 6 October 1985, and
in this connecfion I sent to Mr. A.W.Thrasher, reference librarian in the Southem Asia
Section of the Asian Division, a preliminary description of the contents of the collection after a brief examination of it. In particular, he had inquired about two items (278 and 279) that
are written in non-brahmi script. After careful consideration of the two pages concemed I
wrote to him that I considered them to be forgeries. He replied on 1.10.1985 that 'the LC
Conservation Office ran a test on a microscopic scale for the water solubility of the ink on
the fragments numbered 278 and 279 on the microfilm, the ones in the odd script. The ink
tumed out not to be soluble in water. As you know. Stein wrote that the wrifing on yellow paper in "cabalistic scripts" that he determined to be fraudulent washed out in water. Despite this lack of confirmation of my opinion that the fragments are forgeries, I think it may merely prove that the forgeries came from a different workshop from the one tracked down by Stein.
Apart from the two pages that I consider to be forgeries there are fifty-six fragments in
Khotanese and the remainder are probably all in Sanskrit although in the case of some of the very small fragments it is difficult to be sure whether the language is Sanskrit or Khotanese.
Four fragments I have been able to identify as fragments of a translation of the Sa/ighätasütra:
164 + 165, 218+219, 248+249, 256+257. They are in fact all part of a single folio of the
Safighätasütra representing Safighätasütra §§ 62-65.
Four other fragments in the same script and evidentiy belonging to the same manuscript are parts of an omen text and have similar terms to the two previously known omen texts: Hedin
17 KT 4.31-32 and Kha vi.4.1 KT 3.130 (translated KT 4.114). The four fragments each
have six lines on each side. The fragments are: 106+107, 110+111, 186+187, 246+247.
Two of them bear folio numbers in the left margin. 187 is folio 1 and 246 is folio 7. Both
these folios begin with the word 'siddham', which is commonly used at the beginning of a
text or of a chapter.
Another group of four fragments is of some interest: 78+79, 104+105, 184+185, and
190+191. These fragments are also all written in the same script and have six lines on each
side of the folio. They are part of a medical text and most of them mention needles and
cauterisation.
One of the Khotanese fragments (272+273) is part of a document written in cursive script
in Late Khotanese. It is dated in the rat year of the seventeenth regnal year of an unnamed king.
As for the Sanskrit texts in the Crosby collection, they are all written in Buddhist Hybrid
Sanskrit. The texts are Mahayanist, but so far I have been able to identify only one specific Sanskrit text. Many of the Sanskrit fragments belong to the Prajnäpäramitä literature, which is very extensive and very repetitive so that it is extremely difficult to identify fragments. In
fact very few such fragments have been identified because we have no complete text of a
Central Asian recension of a Prajfiäpäramitä work.
On the 18.5.1985 I was able to identify fragment 228+229 as being a fragment of a Sanskrit
manuscript of the Sumukha-dhärani. 1 published a short article conceming this fragment in
Deyadharma: Studies in memory of Dr. D. C.Sircar, ed. G. Bhattacharya, Delhi 1986, 165-167 + plates 1-2. This fragment is of particular interest because it overlaps with folio 6 of the Leningrad manuscript, which was studied by G.M.Bongard-Levin, M.l.Vorobyeva-Desya- tovskaya, and E.N.Tyomkin in their article 'A fragment of the Sanskrit Sumukhadhärani', published in IU, X.2/3, 1967, 150-159. The Crosby fragment is there shown to have superior readings.
Douglas A. Hitch
Old Khotanese Synchronic Umlaut
A major feature of Old Khotanese morphophonology is the umlaut of particular noun and
verb morphemes when certain endings are added. The details at first glance appear complex:
e.g., for past stem infinitives there is vowel umlaut in hvite < hvata- 'to speak', consonant umlaut in giite < gista- 'to help' but no umlaut in yude < yuda- 'to make, do', etc. Unfil
now no attempt has been made to formulate a single mle covering all instances of this
process. A new approach to the subject has become feasible largely as a result of E.G.
Pulleyblank's work on Chinese in Late Khotanese script. Pulleyblank suggests that Late
Khotanese had cerebrality and aspiration as disfincfive features rather than secondary
palatalization of dentals and voiceless fricativity as argued by R.E. Emmerick (The Consonant
Phonemes of Khotanese, Acta Iranica 21, 1981, 185-209). The Late Khotanese values are
probably valid for Old Khotanese also and they permit the composition of a single, simple and coherent rule oufiining the regular synchronic process of umlaut.
Synchronic Umlaut Formula: 'When an umlaut triggering suffix is attached to a morpheme,
the potential for palatalization is drawn backwards through that morpheme towards the
stressed vowel. As it encounters each segment, three kinds of behaviour are possible: (1) the potential may be realized by the palatalization of an umlautahle segment, or (2) it may be neutralized by reception into an absorbing segment, or (3) it may be allowed to pass further
into the morpheme by a transparent segment. The potential never moves farther back than
the stressed vowel.
The chart below organizes the Old Khotanese phonological segments according to behaviour
with respect to umlaut. Column 1) contains umlautable consonants and vowels. Column 2)
shows those that absorb the palatalization potential. The same segments are also produced by
umlaut and so lines are drawn between columns 1) and 2) connecting umlautable segments
with their umlauted correspondents. Column 3) shows the transparent segments. Each
phonemic representation in slanted brackets (/ /) is accompanied by the usual transliterations of the graphs denoting it.
A. Wezler/E. Hanunerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings ofthe XXXII Intemational Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30th August 1986 (ZDMG-SuppI. 9).
© 1992 Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart
Umlaut Scheme 1)
Umlautable
2) Absorbing or
Umlauted
3) Transparent
Iki k IXl tt, t, t
III gg. g Idi t, d, d
/k^/ kh If'l th
/tV tc HI c, ky l\l t
/dV js /)/ j, gy I'dl d
Ifl ts lei ch Iti th, thth
(umlaut only)
Isl s III ii, i Isl ?5. ?
Izi ys III i Izi s
Ini n, n Ini n Indl nd /ntV nth, mth
lyl y Irl rr,r Irl r
(absorption only)
IM 1 /w/ V
Iml m /h/ h
(all vowels stressed)
IdJ a III i HI i
IdJ ä lel e Id ä
IdTI au, 0 /we/ ve, vai, e lol 0, au
lül Ü /wi/ vf, Ul lui u
{I2J unstressed, only in -ämatä-) (The behaviour of the segments written d, b, g, p, ph, hv, ai and ei has not been noticed.) The author's handout contains a suffix list showing, with examples. all the grammatical
categories featuring umlaut. There are also examples illustrating the behaviour of each
segment with respect to umlaut.
Anna Butler
On the Nart Hero Acämäz
The Nart hero Acämäz is a unique figure in the Ossetic Nart Epos. He belongs to the Acätä
family, about which very little else is known. There are two traditions conceming Acämäz
which are strikingly different in style and content.
The main points of the first tradition can be summarised as follows: while still a baby,
Acämäz takes his dead father's miraculous horse and goes to join the army which has been
mustered to take vengeance on the giant who murdered Acämäz' s father, Acä. Acämäz, with
the assistance of his horse, fights the giant in single combat. Each night the giant retums
home to an enchantress wife who can heal his wounds. Acämäz, however, becomes weaker
and weaker and eventually falls in the battle. His enemy drags him home half dead but the
enchantress wife takes pity on Acämäz and cures him. While the giant sleeps, Acämäz slays
him and retums to the Narts with his wife and much booty.
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© 1992 Franz Stcincr Verlag Stuttgart
Dumezil felt that this story was somewhat different in style and content from the stories of the great Narts. This is not so, however. All the main motifs and episodes in this tale can be encountered in other Nart cycles. The baby hero is reminiscent of the hero of the siege of the fortress of Gori in the Soslan cycle. The marvellous horse and the theme of the child hero avenging his father are well known features in the cycle of Batraz. The enchantress wife is also found in the story of Subälci.
One short Digoron account conceming the division of booty after the siege of the fortress of
Gori involves Acämäz and Sirdon. The story is more like an anecdote than a tme Nart
legend. Acämäz probably enters the tale because of confusion with the other child hero at the siege of the fortress of Gori.
The second tradition is the one which sets Acämäz apart from the other Narts. In contrast to the violence of the first, typically Nart tradition, it is a poetic account of how Acämäz seduces the inaccessible Agunda by playing his marvellous flute. When he plays, all nature is moved by his music: glaciers melt, rivers overflow, animals and birds dance.
Dumezil recorded no variants of this legend in his 1930 book, Ligendes sur les Nartes,
because he had no access to the 1911 Tuganov collection of Digoron texts in which the best
variant appears. This variant was published again by Abaev in 1939. However, the short
poem no. 47 of the Digoron Pamjatniki 2 collection of 1927 is a very short account of this lovely story. The Digoron stories which tell of Acämäz' s successful wooing of the maiden
Wadzäftawä may also belong with this tradition, although we are not told why Acämäz was
preferred to any of the other Narts.
The motif of the marvellous musician with power to enthrall nature is widespread in world mythology. Abaev interprets the legend of Acämäz the musician as a solar myth, indicating the awakening of nature after the sleep of winter.
An altemative suggestion would be to see Acämäz as a shamanic figure with power over
nature. Such a suggestion has been made in the case of the Greek Orpheus who may have
entered Greek mythology through Scythia and Thrace. If Acämäz were such a figure, this
might account for his unusual status and obscure family background among the Narts. The
problem is to reconcile the two different traditions about him. It is impossible to say for certain which is older but it seems unlikely that the two traditions originally belonged to the same hero. It would seem that at some point the minor Nart hero of the first tradition took on the characteristics of the marvellous musician figure, which is clearly an old motif in world mythology.
Considerations
The 28th Intemational Congress of Orientalists in Canberra (1971) accepted, in a
unanimously accepted resolution, the need of cataloguing all Arabic manuscripts and the need of stimulating all efforts and programs in this field.
The participants to the icanas, the direct successor to the Congress in Canberra, are asked to evaluate the developments in this respect, which have taken place since 1971.
— Manuscripts in other Middle Eastem languages, both Islamic and non-Islamic, are
equally worth our attention. What has been done with these in the past years?
— After cataloguing come the questions of preservation and availability. It is deemed
necessary to create an atmosphere in which intemational cooperation is possible.
— Preservation is possible with the availability of sound techniques only. The
establishment of a micro-archive, which operates outside the sphere of commercial interests, is a complement to preservation policies.
— Availability is of primordial importance. All Middle Eastern Uteratures are still mainly available in the form of manuscripts. The survival of these literatures depends on the use of its manuscript treasures.
— Participants are requested to make an inventory of difficulties encountered and
solutions proposed. They may do so in their capacity of curators, responsible for the
use of manuscript collections, or as scholarly readers, who are concemed with the
unhampered study of such collections.
— In view of the numerous and manifold difficulties, which will without doubt be
presented by the participants, would it be possible for the icanas as whole, or its
participants as private persons, to initiate the necessary activities?
At the end of the session of the panel the text of a new resolution on this subject, to be
accepted in the Plenary Session of the icanas, will be proposed.