Literatuurbewaring en biblioteekaktiwiteite in die Ou Nabye Ooste

[摘要] English: Ancient Near Eastern libraries and archives are social institutions, therefore needsorientedThe description of Ancient Near Eastern literature preservation and libraryactivities is dependent on the community in transition from an oral to a literate culture.Within this frame of reference the emergence of writing as a parallel medium ofcommunication to speech, creates a beneficial environment for the gradual emergence oftextual collections as a physical substitute for the so-called oral repository. No integralcommonality in the origins and development of individual Ancient Near Easterncollections has been isolated thus far. The 30th Rencontre As.\yriologique Internationaleconcentrated on specific collections rather than on striving for a comparative study.Information Scientists and Ancient Near Eastern scholars experience difficulties intypifying ancient collections as either libraries and/or archives The viability of the presentresearch lies in the establishment of the cultural-historical setting for the ancient archive orlibrary. Hereby illustrating the textual organisational activities of the community. This doesnot include a chronological study of the collections, as there seems to be no indication ofan evolutionary development of organisational practices The founder- and usercommunity dictated the nature and progress of the collection Three collection types areidentified as possible manifestations of the proto-collection, archives, libraries andgenizahs. The genizah is distinguished, as no internal organisation and retrieval practicescan be perceived Cognisance is taken of the problems involved in discussing thedistinctive features of each, as the proto-collection is still in transition and therefore maychange it's features The collections found at Ebia, Mari, Kuyunjik and Sippar are used toillustrate literature preservation and library activities Three additional collections, sealsand bullae from a post-exilic Judaic archive, Qumran and Babatha's family-archive, areused to indicate specific problems in the description of collections. A study of this naturepoints to the necessity of interdisciplinary co-operation between Ancient Near EasternStudies and Information Science in the handling of any future discoveries, as well as theimplementation of the archival method in the organisation and retrieval of ancientcollections in modern-day museums.

[发布机构] University of the Free State