Holdings
The Heidelberg Oriental collection comprises 526 objects, including manuscripts in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish,
Persian, Hebrew, Samaritan, Syrian, Ethiopian, Coptic and other languages. Since the establishment of an in-house
Digitisation centre
in 2003, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg is in the process of digitising parts of its valuable historical
collection.
Collection history
The majority of the “Codices Heidelbergenses Orientales“ were added to the collection in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, including the first 15 Oriental manuscripts (in 43 volumes) that came to Heidelberg with the
acquisition of the Salem monastery library in 1826/1827. Other additions consisted of donations by scholars as
well as purchases from their estates and from booksellers. In apparent pursuit of a more focused collection
strategy, the library added more than 300 manuscripts to the holdings throughout the 1920s. However, systematic
acquisition ceased at the beginning of the 1930s.
Catalogues
The manuscripts are catalogued in an alphabetical book catalogue, a shelf catalogue and a language index, which
can be consulted in the Manuscript reading room (LSH). In addition, two print catalogues are available for
searching partial collections: Josef Berenbach,
Verzeichnis der neuerworbenen orientalischen
Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
, Leipzig 1928 and the catalogue of Seifeddin Najmabadi,
Die persischen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek
Heidelberg
, Heidelberg 1990.
