Among Zoroastrian burial items, there is a camel-shaped zoomorphic OSTADON lying there. It was found…
The manuscript fund, unique and especially valuable publications of the National Library of Uzbekistan, is part of the library's holdings, consisting of manuscript books and printed publications, manuscript and graphic documents, historical documents of significant historical, scientific, artistic, or other cultural value, which are subject to a special (strict) regime of accounting, storage, and use. This fund contains over 200,000 storage units, among which more than 30,000 are considered unique.
For the orderly placement of fund materials and the arrangement of information-library resources, the following gradation is used. Each century is assigned its own codes, consisting of the capital letter "П" – the initial letter of the Greek word "Palaios" ("ancient") and the lowercase vowel "а" – for books from the 15th and 16th centuries, "е" – 17th century, "и" – 18th century, "о" – for books from the period of the French Revolution; "в" – for Eastern manuscripts and lithographs, "с" – for reference-bibliographic direction, "у" – for the 19th century, and "я" – for the 20th century, followed by a sequential edition number. From the first days of the fund's operation, not only a special internal catalog was organized, but also research and scientific descriptions of individual collections were conducted, and rare editions of early Uzbek literature were acquired.
In the Manuscript, Unique and Especially Valuable Editions Fund, a collection of rare books from the 12th to the 20th centuries has been assembled. These include manuscripts, lithographed editions, periodicals, and a vast number of specimens of medieval European book printing. For instance, books from the renowned Dutch firm Elzevir can be mentioned. The fund also houses unique manuscript juz' (parts) of the Quran. For example, the manuscript of the fifth part (al-Juz' al-khamis lil-Qur'ani-l-karim) covers verses 24–147 of Surah an-Nisa – The Women. The text, with gold inserts and patterns, was produced by calligraphers and artists who worked in the kitabkhana of Baysungur, the grandson of Amir Temur (802/1399–837/1433). The transcription was carried out in the 15th century.
