Ancient Arab scripts to go digital

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JERUSALEM, June 26 (UPI) -- In an effort to preserve Palestinian heritage, ancient Arab language manuscripts from five Jerusalem libraries will soon be available online, officials said.

The project was sponsored and initiated by the European Union and will showcase collections of thousands of ancient Arab language documents, manuscripts and books from five Arab libraries in Jerusalem's Old City, The Jerusalem Post said Tuesday.

The Arab Manuscripts Digital Library of Jerusalem was inaugurated last week in ceremonies in Ramallah and Jerusalem, the newspaper said.

"We are putting it online ultimately to preserve and protect manuscripts," Christophe Graz, project manager, Euromed Heritage-4, Regional Monitoring and Support Unit, told the Post. His unit already runs several heritage projects in Jerusalem which focuses on preserving written materials.

The collections of manuscripts soon to be available online were taken from the Khalidi Library, the Budeiri Library, al-Ansari Library, the Wakf Restoration Center in the Old City and the al-Aksa Library, the newspaper said.