Russia's Kaliningrad Digitizes Kant's Works

A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
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Russia's Kaliningrad Digitizes Kant's Works

A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

In a once-German corner of Russia, an ambitious project to digitize hundreds of rare and ancient books is under way.
"The principal mission of libraries is to preserve books," said Ruslan Aksyonkin, an expert at the culture and education center at Baltic University in the city of Kaliningrad.
"A huge project is currently under way in Russia aimed at scanning all pre-Revolution [of 1917] books."
In Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast and separated from the rest of Russia, around 450 books dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries, some more accessible than others, are to be digitized.
The centerpiece are the books that once belonged to German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, best known for his "Critique of Pure Reason" of 1781 - a ground-breaking but dense 800-page treatise on the relationship between knowledge and experience or perception.
Kant spent his entire life, from 1724 to 1804, in what was then the Prussian city of Koenigsberg, and the project is part of citywide celebrations of next year's 300th anniversary of his birth.
Little of the city Kant would have known is left today, much of the historic center having been flattened by British air raids in 1944, in World War Two, Reuters reported.
After Germany's surrender, the city was ceded to the Soviet Union and resettled with Soviet newcomers, while its German population were expelled.
Even so, modern-day Kaliningrad remains fond of its most famous German resident, despite the abstruseness of his ideas.
The city's university bears his name, and Kant's tomb and a small exhibition on the philosopher have pride of place in the restored German cathedral.
"There are very few authentic items linked to Kant," said Marina Yadova, deputy director at the cathedral's museum. "But we do have certain items, and they are Kant's works published during his lifetime."
Some of the books being digitized, unopened for centuries, contain dried leaves or handkerchiefs, as well as scribbles in the margins of their fragile pages.
"Ancient books can be particularly finicky. They're not always stable. Typically, they're very thick, often with more than 600 pages," said Aksyonkin.
"There are books that seem resistant to scanning."



Remains of Mayan City Nearly 3,000 Years Old Unearthed in Guatemala

The city takes its name, 'Los Abuelos,' from two human-like sculptures of an 'ancestral couple' found at the site. Handout / Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and Sports/AFP
The city takes its name, 'Los Abuelos,' from two human-like sculptures of an 'ancestral couple' found at the site. Handout / Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and Sports/AFP
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Remains of Mayan City Nearly 3,000 Years Old Unearthed in Guatemala

The city takes its name, 'Los Abuelos,' from two human-like sculptures of an 'ancestral couple' found at the site. Handout / Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and Sports/AFP
The city takes its name, 'Los Abuelos,' from two human-like sculptures of an 'ancestral couple' found at the site. Handout / Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and Sports/AFP

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a Mayan city nearly 3,000 years old in northern Guatemala, with pyramids and monuments that point to its significance as an important ceremonial site, the Central American country's culture ministry said Thursday.

The Mayan civilization arose around 2000 BC, reaching its height between 400 and 900 AD in what is present-day southern Mexico and Guatemala, as well as parts of Belize, El Salvador and Honduras.

The city named "Los Abuelos," Spanish for "The Grandparents," once stood some 21 kilometers (13 miles) from the important archaeological site of Uaxactun, in Guatemala's northern Peten department, the ministry said in a statement.

It is dated to what is known as the "Middle Preclassic" period from about 800 to 500 BC, and is believed to have been "one of the most ancient and important ceremonial centers" of the Mayan civilization in the jungle area of Peten near the Mexican border, it added.

"The site presents remarkable architectural planning" with pyramids and monuments "sculpted with unique iconography from the region," said the ministry.

The city takes its name from two human-like sculptures of an "ancestral couple" found at the site.

The figures, dated to between 500 and 300 BC, "could be linked to ancient ritual practices of ancestor worship," said the ministry.

'Unique canal system'

The city, which covers an area of about 16 square kilometers (six square miles) was discovered by Guatemalan and Slovak archaeologists in previously little-explored areas of the Uaxactun park.

Nearby, they also found a pyramid standing 33 meters (108 feet) high with murals from the Preclassic period and "a unique canal system," according to the statement.

"The set of these three sites forms a previously unknown urban triangle... These findings allow us to rethink the understanding of the ceremonial and socio-political organization of pre-Hispanic Peten," said the ministry.

In April, scientists discovered a 1,000-year-old altar from Mexico's ancient Teotihuacan culture at Tikal, elsewhere in the Peten department.

That find was interpreted as proof of ties between the two pre-Hispanic cultures, which lived about 1,300 km apart.

Tikal, about 23 km from Uaxcatun, is the main archaeological site in Guatemala and one of its biggest tourist attractions.