-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  Institut d'Egypte library burned near Tahrir square clash
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:19:03 -0500
From: Richard Minsky <[log in to unmask]>

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012378369-l-institut-d-egypte-fonde-par-bonaparte-est-parti-en-fumee

Translated using google translate

The Institute of Egypt founded by Bonaparte went up in smoke

Close to Tahrir Square, the Institute of Egypt founded by Napoleon
Bonaparte, burned during clashes between demonstrators and security
forces, is a ruin where priceless archives and historical works are gone
in smoke.

Sunday, volunteers were trying, through the barred windows of the ground
floor, to get inside the building a few pages torn or heavily charred
books to store them in plastic bags.

"We're trying to save what we can of these historical documents. The
building may collapse from one moment to another, "says Olfa, a young
woman who meets a paper bag partial ash.

"We will hand them over to authorities" before they are completely
destroyed or stolen, for its part provides Momtaz, who came with other
picking up scraps of paper.

But around them teenagers playing with pages that are scattered on the
sidewalk, or soaking in pools of water.

And around, where clashes continue between anti-government protesters
and military police, no one seems to make much of these precious
documents reduced to ashes.
Institute founded in 1798 by Bonaparte

Smoke continued to be released Sunday on the eve of the building on fire
in circumstances not specifically determined. The army is involved
petrol bombs thrown by protesters, but this version is disputed.

The exterior walls, blackened around the windows, are still standing but
the roof and floors collapsed. The interior is nothing but a pile of
charred rubble from which emerge fragments of shelves or pieces of bindings.

The Institute was founded in 1798 during the expedition of Napoleon
Bonaparte to Egypt in order to advance scientific research. Its current
building, which dates from the early twentieth century, home to some
200,000 books, some rare, particularly relating to the history and
geography of Egypt.

Among his most precious volumes of an edition of the monumental
Description de l'Egypte, the sum of knowledge about this country made by
the scholars of Bonaparte's expedition, which have been destroyed,
according to the Egyptian press.
"A disaster for science"

The Ministry of Culture requested an inventory of the damage, when the
situation in the area of ​​Tahrir permits.

"It fills me with sadness and dismay. This is a huge disaster for Egypt
"told AFP Raouf el-Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington and
a member of the Institute.

"This institute is part of the shared history between France and Egypt,"
said the archaeologist Christian Leblanc, who is a member too.

The Minister of Culture Shaker Abdel Hamid described the fire "disaster
for science," and announced the "formation of a committee of specialists
in the restoration of books and manuscripts when security conditions
permit."

"The building contained very important manuscripts and rare books which
it is difficult to find the equivalent in the world," he said, referring
to efforts involving "youth revolution, the Supreme Council of Culture
and restaurants to save what can be. "

The Minister of Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim, said in a statement that
he would ask the French authorities to contribute to the restoration of
the building.