Stewart visits Jerusalem yearly, and it was there that I recently observed him meeting with stern Orthodox Syrian monks, influential Armenian patriarchs, and cosmopolitan Palestinian families. “I like this job because this collection belongs to my ancestors.” She wore gloves to avoid damaging the delicate pages. “I feel very proud of what I am doing,” she said, showing me a beautiful manuscript decorated with gold, owned by the Budeiry Library. She has spent the past several years photographing thousands of pages, including those of her family’s private collection. In Jerusalem, where HMML has been digitizing four Islamic and Christian collections, the process is handled by Shaima Budeiry, who studied manuscript preservation in Dubai. Technician Shaima Budeiry digitizes a manuscript in Jerusalem. They feel proud because they can say ‘We did this,’ which is true.” “They are the ones doing the work and getting paid for it. “We never touch the manuscripts,” Stewart explained. People understand I am not representing a big business or an imperialist cultural agency.”Īlso crucial to this understanding is HMML’s policy of training local people, who keep total physical control of the manuscripts. “Being a monk puts me in a very different category. Indeed, his involvement with manuscripts began almost accidentally when, in 2003, he was asked to join an HMML preparatory field trip to Lebanon due to his monastic connections. “Everybody knows about the Benedictines-manuscripts and learning, this is part of our identity, a brand which is somehow universal,” he said. This is where Stewart’s reputation as a monk comes into play. Some are especially skeptical about granting Westerners access to cultural treasures, given the tens of thousands of manuscripts looted during the colonial period and now housed in various museums and libraries around Europe. Many of the communities Stewart approaches have been scarred by years of war, persecution or displacement, and are wary of outsiders. Getting in touch with the various religious orders, cultural organizations, and families that hold manuscript collections can require years of traveling and a lot of diplomacy aimed at gaining trust-with no guarantee of a positive outcome. So far, it has managed to photograph more than 140,000 complete manuscripts, for a total of more than 50,000,000 handwritten pages, according to the organization’s website.īut digitization is only the last stage in a slow and sometimes frustrating process. Based out of Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, HMML is dedicated to preserving endangered manuscripts on microfilm and in digital format. He has trained local teams to photograph centuries-old books with the help of the non-profit organization he directs, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML). As ISIS militants have destroyed countless artifacts, Stewart has attempted to counter them by working with Christian and Muslim communities in hotspots such as Iraq and Syria.
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