Manassa Aceh Restores 520 Ancient Manuscripts Damaged by Floods
- 08 Sep 2026 09:51 WIB
- Voice of Indonesia
Key Points
- Hundreds ancient historical manuscripts in Aceh were reported damaged by flash floods and landslides in late November 2025, with some completely destroyed.
- The Nusantara Manuscript Society (Manassa) Aceh has inventoried surviving manuscripts as part of efforts to rescue Aceh’s historical heritage.
RRI.CO.ID, Banda Aceh - The flash floods and landslides that struck Aceh in late November 2025 left not only physical devastation, but also threatened the survival of the region’s collective memory. A total of 520 historical ancient manuscripts that hold traces of Aceh’s civilization have now been reported damaged, with some completely destroyed and beyond salvage.
As part of efforts to rescue these historical documents, the Nusantara Manuscript Society (Manassa) Aceh has conducted an inventory of the surviving manuscripts.
“The manuscripts we have inventoried will undergo restoration according to their assessed levels of damage. This restoration work is part of our effort to save various historical documents,” said Chairperson of Manassa Aceh, Hermansyah, in Darussalam, Banda Aceh, on Monday, 7 September 2026.
He explained that the restoration covers manuscripts from community collections, institutional holdings, and government collections.
“In other words, the restoration we carry out continues to take into account the level of damage, the availability of human resources, and budgetary support for these activities,” he said, as quoted by Antara.
Hermansyah noted that the rescue work is being conducted in collaboration with several institutions, including Ar-Raniry State Islamic University (UIN), the Cultural Preservation Agency, and the National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas). According to him, of the more than 500 manuscripts, 100 have been prioritized for conservation, while 50 others will receive new covers after their original covers were damaged by the disaster.
“We carry out restoration or manuscript repairs from the initial stages through to rebinding. In this case, there are several manuscripts that truly cannot be repaired at all, they have been completely destroyed. We are grateful, however, that we have still been able to save some manuscripts from community and institutional collections,” he said.
Providing further detail, he explained that the rescue process includes re-cleaning by carefully separating manuscript pages that have stuck together due to water exposure, followed by drying using specialized drying equipment.
“This drying is of course carried out with great care so that, once dry, the manuscripts can be opened again without damaging their contents,” he said.
He added that restoring all of these manuscripts will require adequate human resources and budgetary support. This step is crucial to ensure that Aceh’s history, as recorded in these ancient manuscripts, remains preserved and can be studied by future generations. ***
News Recomendation
Loading latest news.....