THE MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION OF THE ACEH MUSEUM

Abstract

The manuscript collection of the Aceh Museum contains over 1,500 volumes written in Malay, Acehnese and Arabic, and covers a wide variety of subjects, including literature and the Islamic sciences. Among the highlights of the collection are works by great Acehnese writers and scholars such as Hamzah Fansuri, Syams al-Din al-Sumatrani and Abd al-Rauf al-Sinkili. This article describes the development and scope of the collection, and the steps taken by the Aceh Museum to raise public awareness of the value of manuscripts as a tangible legacy of the great intellectual heritage of Aceh, especially following the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004. 1This article is based on two papers: ‘The manuscript collections of the Aceh Museum’, presented at the ASEASUK Annual Conference in Liverpool, 20–22 June 2008, and ‘Warisan budaya Aceh: dampak gempa dan tsunami, dan upaya rekonstruksi/rehabalitasi dan pemeliharaannya’ (The cultural heritage of Aceh: the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, and efforts at reconstuction/rehabilitation and preservation), presented at a meeting convened by Wadah at the Indonesian Embassy, London, on 27 June 2008. Extracts from the second paper were translated by A. Gallop.