Cambodia’s
Manuscripts
Safeguarding and Showcasing a
Written Heritage
By M. Leng Kok An
Presentation in Khmer
with simultaneous translation in English and French
Threatened with extinction in the early 1990s, the
Cambodian corpus of manuscripts engraved on latania leaves has been the focus
of a meticulous safeguarding and restoration operation directed by the École
française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) for the past 20 years. Thousands of
manuscripts have thus been preserved throughout the Kingdom before recently
being digitized and put on line with assistance from the government of
Singapore and UNESCO. Mr. Leng Kok An, an associate of Professor Olivier de
Bernon within the EFEO’s Fonds pour l’Edition des Manuscrits du
Cambodge (Fund for Manuscript Publication in Cambodia), will introduce this
daunting memory conservation project.
With
the Support of the Singapore fund in trust with UNESCO