Welcome
Minister of State Pieper welcomes inclusion of four German documents in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register
Minister of State Pieper welcomes UNESCO's decision to inscribe the Nebra Sky Disc and othter items to its Memory of the World Register.
UNESCO has added the Nebra Sky Disc and the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia to its Memory of the World Register. Two further items – the Communist Manifesto in combination with volume I of Das Kapital, and the constitutional document the Golden Bull – were inscribed as joint German Dutch and German Austrian contributions respectively.
The decision to inscribe these documents on the list was taken by the International Advisory Committee for the Memory of the World Programme at its conference in Gwangju Metropolitan City, South Korea, on 18 June.
Minister of State Cornelia Pieper commented on the decision today (19 June):
I am absolutely delighted to see the Nebra Sky Disc from my native Saxony Anhalt included on the register. The 3600 year old Sky Disc is the earliest known image of the night sky.
Another just as significant inscription is the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, with its collections of recipes and monastic remedies from the Middle Ages.
I am also delighted by the inclusion of our joint nomination with the Netherlands, the Communist Manifesto together with volume I of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, and the 1356 constitutional document the Golden Bull, which we had nominated in conjunction with Austria.
This means Germany is now strongly represented on the Memory of the World Register by a total of 17 entries.
UNESCO has been running its Memory of the World Programme since 1992 to preserve and provide access to exceptional documents deemed part of humanity’s cultural and intellectual heritage. The aim is to engender a collective memory of human history and safeguard very valuable documentary evidence for posterity.
The 299 items inscribed in the Memory of the World Register to date include historically valuable book collections, handwritten manuscripts, musical scores, one of a kind documents, visual images, sound recordings and films from every region of the world.