JEDDAH: The King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research & Archives will promote history and awareness with a display of more than 3,000 antique manuscripts from the Arabian Peninsula. The show at Heritage Gallery in Jeddah, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Written Heritage,” is set to open on Jan. 2. It will promote interest in the priceless treasures that embody the history of the Kingdom, the depth of its civilization and its humanity, organizers said. The show reflects the results of the foundation's field projects to count and collect manuscripts in the Kingdom and elsewhere. The opening ceremony will be attended by a number of distinguished scholars, intellectuals, and historians. Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, Emir of Riyadh, will host the opening of the show, which is considered by researchers and intellectuals as a refutation to claims that the peninsula lived in illiteracy and ignorance throughout the past centuries. The manuscripts that will be displayed in the one-and-a-half-month show are the intellectual products of scholars and thinkers of the peninsula in those times. The support of Prince Salman for such services to the Kingdom's intellectual heritage is meant to inspire interest in antique manuscripts. Bringing them from private collections to public display has great benefits in research and in historic and cultural studies. Abdulaziz Al-Suwain'a of the King Abdul Aziz Foundation said the organization carries out a number of activities, including seminars, lectures and cultural agreements, to promote awareness of history. “Prince Salman grants national history a great deal of his concern,” Al-Suwain'a said. “Sponsoring the opening of this gallery that is the first of its kind in the Kingdom is another example of his interest to display more aspects of our history through the King Abdul Aziz Foundation.”
