RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is launching the world’s first “flying museum”, highlighting archaeological finds on a plane journey between the capital and the ancient city of AlUla. The museum, which is a collaborative project between the Royal Commission for AlUla and the national flag carrier Saudia, will exhibit a replica collection of artifacts that have been discovered in AlUla through archaeological excavations.

Passengers will also be able to watch a Discovery Channel documentary called “Architects of Ancient Arabia” that was released this year, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Rebecca Foote, director of archaeology and cultural heritage research at the commission, will provide an introduction to the documentary during the trip and give an explanation about the artifacts featured in the museum.

She said: “There is a major load of work ongoing in AlUla by local and international archeologists, and yet we are just beginning to understand the complicated nature of AlUla’s past. AlUla is a hidden gem in the Arabian Peninsula, and we are slowly discovering its secrets. I am looking forward to sharing more information about our work with passengers of the Museum in the Sky trip, operated by Saudia.”

Philip Jones, the commission’s chief destination marketing officer, said the museum would highlight the importance of the archeological work being done in AlUla, which the commission believed was the “biggest archeological program” in the world at this time.

(Arab News, Jeddah)

DAMASCUS: The Damascus bookshops and publishing houses that once stood as beacons of Syria’s intellectual life are being replaced with shoe shops and money changers, as culture falls casualty to crisis.

Syria is home to some of the Arab world’s literary giants, and Damascus boasted an abundance of busy bookshops and publishing houses printing and distributing original and translated works. But the city’s literary flare has faded.

A decade-old civil war, a chronic economic crisis and a creative brain drain that has deprived Syria of some of its best writers and many of their readers, have compounded worldwide problems facing the industry, such as the growing popularity of e-books.

Last month, the iconic Nobel bookshop in Damascus, founded in 1970, closed its doors. The Al-Yaqza bookshop, founded in 1939, shut seven years ago, with a shoe store now taking its place. A money exchange office has replaced the Maysalun bookshop which was open for four decades. The Al-Nouri bookstore, founded in 1930, is at risk of meeting the same fate. The Nouri family currently runs two bookshops in central Damascus.

With 90 percent of the population living below the poverty line and prices skyrocketing in the face of the plummeting value of the Syrian pound, “no one is going to invest in a bookshop during conflict.”

Surging printing costs and logistical difficulties linked to power cuts have combined to make books too expensive for most.

(Arab News)

RIYADH: One of the rarest human anatomy manuscripts dating from the 14th century has found its way to the King Abdulaziz Public Library in the Kingdom’s capital.

The book, titled “The Anatomy of the Human Body,” is the earliest known book to dissect and draw the inside of the human body. It was written by Mansur bin Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Yusuf bin Ilias Al-Kashmiri between 1380 and 1391. The book is one of the most precious Islamic medical manuscripts. It preceded the modern anatomy of the Belgian physician Andreas Vesalius and the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci.

European scientists learnt from the book’s drawings and manuscripts and made anatomy a part of their recognized medical education. The illustrations, drawn with pen and inks of different colors, present the entire human body, with each drawing taking a whole page. The drawings demonstrate great craftsmanship in their use of lines and colors. They utilized the art of the Islamic miniatures, which was standard at the time the book was written, and were drawn with no tools other than pens.

The chapters cover the bones, nerves, muscles, veins, arteries, face, nose, liver and other organs of the human body, with the author writing in detail about the functions of the arteries and describing the veins as mobile veins that emerge from the left and right ventricles of the heart, where the diastole and systole occur.

The book, written in Persian, was transcribed by a scribe named Mohammed Hassan on Dec. 16, 1707.

Ten museums in Makkah have opened their doors to showcase Makkah’s unique identity throughout history. The museums house some of the rarest artifacts, illustrations and collections that reveal the human experiences of the city. They show how the people of Makkah managed to shape a wealth of human knowledge through various epochs and the progress made after the prophecy and its noble teachings came into existence. The Two Holy Mosques Architecture Exhibition is one of the most prominent museums in Saudi Arabia and is home to treasures and artifacts dating back more than 1,400 years. Opened in 2000, during the reign of the late King Fahd, it contains seven main halls highlighting Islamic civilization.

To further protect and save plant genetic diversity, Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Palms and Dates registered more than 127 types of local and international date seeds, making it the most significant date palm genetic bank in the world.

The Center in Al Ahsa plans to increase the number of date varieties and raise the number of dates registered to 200 by 2027. Saudi Arabia has approximately 30 million palm trees that produce nearly 1.5 million tons of dates.