UNESCO UNESCO - Memory of the World - The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day

Philippines

Philippine Paleographs (Hanunoo, Buid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan)

Presidential papers of Manuel L. Quezon

José Maceda collection

Radio broadcast of the Philippine People Power Revolution

Poland

Codex Suprasliensis *

Radziwills’ Archives and Niasvizh (Nieśwież) Library collection *

Nicolaus Copernicus’ masterpiece ‘De revolutionibus libri sex’

The Confederation of Warsaw of 28th of January 1573

National Education Commission archives

The masterpieces of Fryderyk Chopin

Warsaw Ghetto archives (Emanuel Ringelblum archives)

Archive of Warsaw Reconstruction Office

Archives of the Literary Institute in Paris (1946–2000)

Twenty-One demands, Gdańsk, August 1980

Portugal

Corpo Cronológico (collection of manuscripts on the Portuguese discoveries)

Treaty of Tordesillas *

Letter from Pêro Vaz de Caminha

Arquivos dos Dembos / Ndembu archives *

First flight across the South Atlantic Ocean in 1922

Russian Federation

Codex Suprasliensis *

Ostromir Gospel (1056–1057)

Archangel Gospel of 1092

Khitrovo Gospel

Slavonic publications in Cyrillic script of the 15th century

Radziwills’ Archives and Niasvizh (Nieśwież) Library collection *

Tolstoy’s personal library and manuscripts, photo and film collection

Collection of 18th-century maps of the Russian empire

Newspaper collections, Russian Federation

The Historical Collections (1889–1955) of St Petersburg Phonogram Archives

Russian posters of the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Registry of Slaves of the British Caribbean 1817–1834 *

Saint Lucia

Silver men: West Indian labourers at the Panama Canal *

Sir William Arthur Lewis papers

Saudi Arabia

Earliest Islamic (Kufic) inscription

Senegal

Fonds of the Afrique occidentale française (AOF)

Serbia

Miroslav Gospel – manuscript from 1180

Nikola Tesla’s Archive

Slovakia

Illuminated codices from the library of the Bratislava Chapter House

Bašagic collection of Islamic manuscripts

Mining maps and plans of the Main Chamber – Count Office in Banská Štiavnica

Slovenia

Codex Suprasliensis *

South Africa

Archives of the Dutch East India Company *

The Bleek collection

Criminal Court Case No. 253/1963 (The State versus N. Mandela and Others)

Liberation Struggle Living Archive Collection

Spain

Santa Fe Capitulations

Treaty of Tordesillas *

Sri Lanka

Archives of the Dutch East India Company *

Suriname

Dutch West India Company (Westindische Compagnie) archives *

Archives of the Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie *

Records of the Indian indentured labourers *

Sweden

Codex Argenteus – the ‘Silver Bible’

Stockholm City Planning Committee archives

Emanuel Swedenborg collection

Alfred Nobel family archives

Ingmar Bergman archives

Astrid Lindgren archives

Switzerland

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Geneva and Neuchâtel collections

Tajikistan

The manuscript of Ubayd Zakoni’s Kulliyat and Hafez Sherozi’s Gazalliyt

Tanzania

Collection of Arabic manuscripts and books

German records of the National Archives

Thailand

The King Ram Khamhaeng inscription

Epigraphic archives of Wat Pho

Archival documents of King Chulalongkorn’s transformation of Siam (1868–1910)

Trinidad and Tobago

Registry of Slaves of the British Caribbean 1817–1834 *

Records of the Indian indentured labourers *

Constantine collection

C.L.R. James collection

Derek Walcott collection

Eric Williams collection

Tunisia

Privateering and the international relations of the Regency of Tunis in the 18th and 19th centuries

Turkey

The Hittite cuneiform tablets from Bogazköy

Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute manuscripts

The works of Ibn Sina in the Süleymaniye Manuscript Library

Ukraine

Radziwills’ Archives and Niasvizh (Nieśwież) Library collection *

Collection of Jewish musical folklore (1912–1947)

United Kingdom

Magna Carta, issued in 1215

Hereford Mappa Mundi

Dutch West India Company (Westindische Compagnie) archives *

Registry of Slaves of the British Caribbean 1817–1834 *

Silver men: West Indian labourers at the Panama Canal *

Historic ethnographic recordings (1898–1951) at the British Library

The Battle of the Somme

The Appeal of 18 June 1940 *

United States of America

Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque Lustrationes *

Dutch West India Company (Westindische Compagnie) archives *

Silver men: West Indian labourers at the Panama Canal *

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939), produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

John Marshall Ju/’hoan bushman film and video collection, 1950–2000

Landsat Program records: Multispectral Scanner (MSS) sensors

Uruguay

Original records of Carlos Gardel – Horacio Loriente collection (1913–1935)

Uzbekistan

Holy Koran Mushaf of Othman

The collection of the Al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies

Venezuela

Colombeia: Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda’s archives

General Archive of the Nation: Writings of The Liberator Simón Bolívar

Collection of Latin American photographs of the 19th century

Vietnam

Stone stele records of royal examinations of the Le and Mac dynasties (1442–1779)

Woodblocks of the Nguyễn dynasty

Other

Christopher Okigbo Foundation (Africa) Christopher Okigbo collection

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Archives of the International Prisoners of War Agency, 1914–1923

United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) League of Nations archives 1919–1946

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) UNRWA photo and film archives of Palestinian refugees

*Joint Inscriptions between 2 or more countries.

MEMORY OF WORLD DOCUMENTS

ORDERED BY THE DATE THEY WERE RECORDED

The Hittite cuneiform tablets from Bogazköy

Inscribed 2001

What is it

Ancient Hittite texts preserved in cuneiform on 25,000 clay tablets.

Why was it inscribed

The Bogazköy archive of cuneiform tablets is the only source of information on the Hittites as well as on the social, political and commercial activities of the area. The archive sheds light not only on that area and period, but also on the history and the civilization of human kind as a whole.

Where is it

Archaeological Museums of Istanbul and Anatolian Civilizations Museum of Ankara, Turkey

Anatolia forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, and the area has been the cradle of many civilizations. The Hittites ruled here for nearly 600 years in the 2nd millennium BC, after moving from the Caucasus. They established a powerful state within a bend of the Kızılırmak river (the ancient Halys) with its capital at Bogazköy. The civilization of the Hittites was advanced in its military achievements, political organization, legislation and the administration of justice. Their military, political, social and commercial relations with neighbouring countries were all recorded and kept in archives meticulously.

Ancient Hittite cuneiform script

The state had a federal structure, and the central government was headed by the king who was also the commander of the army, the supreme judicial authority and the chief priest, though he was never actually deified. In fact, the Hittite king, for the first time in the history of the ancient east, possessed no divine attributes.