Linkissage

[oursin]

The thematic bit: several stories about manuscripts, history, evidence:

Ursula Le Guin on a novel inspired by the survival against all odds of the Sarajevo Haggadah:
The Sarajevo Haggadah, pride and glory of the Bosnian collection, was spirited out of the library and hidden in a bank vault when the Serbs began to target the libraries and museums of

Comments

[oursin]

Someone I knew in Afghanistan was subsequently (post Soviet invasion) imprisoned for alleged looting - I'm 99% certain that this was because he was involved in sending archaeological artefacts to the British Museum for conservation work for which there were no local facilities and the charge was trumped up.

There are various examples of unauthorised removal of items from museums, archives, libraries, etc, undertaken with the aim of saving them. For example, the archivists of the Irish Public Record Office who saved the few items that survive from the explosion in the Fourt Courts during the Dublin fighting in the Irish Civil War by sneaking them home with them and hiding them under their beds.

In extreme circumstances things are done sometimes with good intention that are open to differing interpretations.