syncategorematic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
syncategorematic) wrote2010-07-16 01:36 pm
syncategorematic) wrote2010-07-16 01:36 pm
Entry tags:
The Ancient Writers of Spain
We stopped back at the hotel and decided to go to the Archeological Museum, and as the National Library is in the same building, and apparently my brother is already a fan of Spain's National Library, we will visit that as well.
The National Library's Museum entrance also featured a security scanner, and a receptionist who tried speaking to me in halting English before discovering to her relief that I understood Spanish pretty well.
So there was an exhibit on the Moriscos, the Moors in Spain who had been forced to convert or be exiled by the Christians after the conquest of Granada.
The exhibit was mostly books, and books in Arabic to boot, but I thoroughly (for once) read the Spanish texts above them. It's a library; you gotta read, right? Even though I am aware that I read Spanish much more slowly than English or Russian, and it frustrates me. But I learned some interesting things, like the fact that there were networks smuggling forbidden books around Morisco communities when all books in Arabic script were prohibited and many were destroyed --- even though many of those books were Spanish transliterated into Arabic script, the so-called 'aljamiados', as the Moors living in Andalusia gradually forgot how to speak Arabic fluently. The Toledo guide had pointed that out too, that at the time of the Reconquista, the Moors were not Arabic; they were not African; they were Spanish.
From the exhibit, we went to the display of the library museum proper. The history of writing across various languages (Baruch Hashem, their Hebrew was displayed right side up) including, cool, Phoenician. A display on Braille text and the writing boards used for that. A really neat display on old music recording and playback devices, which allowed you to listen to each of them. Antique typewriters that had only 22 letters for Spanish and were not QWERTY. Printing presses and their history, including Gutenberg typecases. A display of the bookbinding art, including gorgeous books that had won the National Bookbinding Competition in 1995 and 1996 (which supports my thesis that whatever you can possibly imagine, there are people who do it very very well, and there is a competition in it.) A 1989 Macintosh that looked hopelessly quaint.
Fascinating.
The Archeological Museum is on the other side of the building, but there is no way through, so we had to go around.
The Museum was a little bit of a disappointment, because, alas, I've been to the British Museum and more than once. We did not find a replica of the caves at Altamira, which was what I had been hoping to see; we did see the Lady of Elx and the other Roman ruins (sorry, it seems that seeing Numancia has soured me forever from enthusiasm about Romans in Spain, which is no good). They had a lovely collection of Greek vases, as well as 17th and 18th century porcelain; some beautifully preserved gold coins of Greece, Rome, and Iberia; and some lovely Visigothic jewelry. But all in all, it was smaller than I had thought. Oh well, it was free, and I did learn something.
The National Library's Museum entrance also featured a security scanner, and a receptionist who tried speaking to me in halting English before discovering to her relief that I understood Spanish pretty well.
So there was an exhibit on the Moriscos, the Moors in Spain who had been forced to convert or be exiled by the Christians after the conquest of Granada.
The exhibit was mostly books, and books in Arabic to boot, but I thoroughly (for once) read the Spanish texts above them. It's a library; you gotta read, right? Even though I am aware that I read Spanish much more slowly than English or Russian, and it frustrates me. But I learned some interesting things, like the fact that there were networks smuggling forbidden books around Morisco communities when all books in Arabic script were prohibited and many were destroyed --- even though many of those books were Spanish transliterated into Arabic script, the so-called 'aljamiados', as the Moors living in Andalusia gradually forgot how to speak Arabic fluently. The Toledo guide had pointed that out too, that at the time of the Reconquista, the Moors were not Arabic; they were not African; they were Spanish.
From the exhibit, we went to the display of the library museum proper. The history of writing across various languages (Baruch Hashem, their Hebrew was displayed right side up) including, cool, Phoenician. A display on Braille text and the writing boards used for that. A really neat display on old music recording and playback devices, which allowed you to listen to each of them. Antique typewriters that had only 22 letters for Spanish and were not QWERTY. Printing presses and their history, including Gutenberg typecases. A display of the bookbinding art, including gorgeous books that had won the National Bookbinding Competition in 1995 and 1996 (which supports my thesis that whatever you can possibly imagine, there are people who do it very very well, and there is a competition in it.) A 1989 Macintosh that looked hopelessly quaint.
Fascinating.
The Archeological Museum is on the other side of the building, but there is no way through, so we had to go around.
The Museum was a little bit of a disappointment, because, alas, I've been to the British Museum and more than once. We did not find a replica of the caves at Altamira, which was what I had been hoping to see; we did see the Lady of Elx and the other Roman ruins (sorry, it seems that seeing Numancia has soured me forever from enthusiasm about Romans in Spain, which is no good). They had a lovely collection of Greek vases, as well as 17th and 18th century porcelain; some beautifully preserved gold coins of Greece, Rome, and Iberia; and some lovely Visigothic jewelry. But all in all, it was smaller than I had thought. Oh well, it was free, and I did learn something.