"It’s imperative to make sure that these manuscripts are safe"

February 25, 2017 3:28 PM

The monk who saves manuscripts from ISIS "Rescuing the world’s most precious antiquities from destruction is a painstaking project—and a Benedictine monk may seem like an unlikely person to lead the charge. But Father Columba Stewart is determined. Soft-spoken, dressed in flowing black robes, this 59-year-old American has spent the past 13 years roaming from the Balkans to the Middle East in an effort to save Christian and Islamic manuscripts threatened by wars, theft, weather—and, lately, the Islamic State."
posted by Hypatia (4 comments total)

I think this is a very likely task for a monk. Monks have saved antiquities before.

I'm taking a break from a datarescue for US government climate and ecological data -- rescuing our data from our own government... maybe it will take less than 13 years.
posted by clew at 3:41 PM on February 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think it is easy, when we see the scale of human misery and loss, to disregard the importance of artistic and cultural items. how can we care about art and manuscripts when children are dying and cities are smoldering? but I do think its important. to lose your home, your family, your life is so terrible, but to lose your culture and history too just robs survivors of even more. the destruction of cultural heritage is an eradication. that is why, IMHO, the damage of the Atlantic slave trade cuts so deep, and the desecration of a Jewish cemetery holds such horror. its the destruction of not only the present and the future, but the very past of a culture and people.
posted by supermedusa at 3:59 PM on February 25, 2017 [7 favorites]

I think it is easy, when we see the scale of human misery and loss, to disregard the importance of artistic and cultural items. how can we care about art and manuscripts when children are dying and cities are smoldering?

The Monuments Men is a film about the Allied soldiers tasked with recovering and protecting artworks during WWII. It was a mediocre movie in general, but one thing that stands out in my memory of it is this (spoilers follow):

Early in the film, as the leader of the group is being briefed on his mission, he is told that "obviously, no piece of art is worth a human life".

At the very end of the film, after they have rescued thousands of pieces from destruction and lost two men in the process, he reflects on whether those men would have considered that perhaps it was worth it after all, and that moved me a great deal.
posted by automatronic at 3:50 AM on February 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

A previous related post about Religious and artistic preservation.
posted by eclectist at 5:16 AM on February 26, 2017