(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Oman is witnessing the loss of its valuable historical treasures with hundreds of years old handwritten manuscripts finding their way out of Oman into neighbouring states to be sold for thousands of rials.
According to the Ministry of Heritage and Culture (MoHC) there are more than 30000 significant and rare manuscripts in the country in private collections or lying unaccounted for as family heirlooms.
Picture for illustrative purpose only (MoHC archive)
Identifying the importance of manuscripts as historical treasures MoHC established a separate department in 1976 to be entrusted with the task of collecting and preserving manuscripts related to history of the sultanate from internal as well as international sources.
And since then the ministry has collected 4836 manuscripts of which many were procured directly from people by suitably reimbursing them. The ministry has been running a programme for many years now to create awareness and to get people to come forward to get their manuscripts archived or scanned so that a copy of it is preserved in a digital format.
The ministry even has earmarked a small budget to monetarily compensate those who want to part with their manuscripts. 'But in recent times not many people are coming forward as the ministry doesn't have the budget to pay thousands of rials for a single copy which people have been demanding' said an official at the ministry.
According to the data available with the ministry it bought 13 manuscripts from people in 2010 for RO970 63 in 2011 for RO9175 and 45 in 2012 for RO6840.
This meant that the ministry gave on an average RO74 in 2010 for each manuscript RO145 in 2011 and RO152 each in 2012.
'In the last couple of years there have been even fewer people who have come to us and most want so much money that the ministry cannot afford to buy the manuscripts from them' he said.
The problem has magnified added the official as a few big cultural centres run by private businesses in UAE and Qatar are offering large sums of money for anything significant.
'There are people in Oman who are being lured by these centres into selling their possessions not realising that it is a national treasure.'
He added it is difficult for the border police to monitor the transport of valuable national wealth as they are not trained to identify it.
'It is resulting in a big loss to the country. History is being taken away the gravity of which will be realised after some time.
'With time no one will know that these handwritten papers of immense national value once belonged to Oman and Omani people.'
The official said that although the Manuscript Department was established in 1976 the ministry has a collection of less than 5000 works while a prominent centre in Dubai has more than 100000.
Furthermore the process of digitisation of all the collected manuscripts is a recent initiative of the ministry. So far it has restored and digitised 3950 manuscripts. Eventually the collection will be available online so that it helps researchers and historians besides promoting further research and create awareness about Oman's rich legacy.
'We believe there are tens of thousands of rare manuscripts gathering dust in the houses of Omani people. If people don't act now their treasure would be lost in some years as these manuscripts need proper care and storage. The ministry even offers free restoration. In return we only make a digital copy' the official said.
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