Katherine Mansfield, Charles Darwin, and Amadou Hampâté Bâ Archives Added to UNESCO Register

UNESCO has added 74 new documentary heritage collections to its Memory of the World Register, covering topics such as the scientific revolution, women's contribution to history, and major milestones of multilateralism.

The register, now totalling 570 entries, consists of documentary collections including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, sound and video recordings, which bear witness to the shared heritage of humanity.

One of the most important additions is the Charles Darwin Archive which provides a unique window into the life and work of the influential natural scientist. It is a collaboration between Cambridge University Library, the Natural History Museum, the Linnean Society of London, English Heritage’s Down House, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the National Library of Scotland. The complete archive, comprising more than 20,000 items, includes Darwin’s records illustrating the development of his theory of evolution and extensive global travels. 

Among the other newly inscribed collections are:

• the Itḥāf Al-Mahbūb manuscript which documents the Arab world’s contributions to astronomy, planetary movement, celestial bodies, and astrological analysis during the first millennium
• archives of Friedrich Nietzsche, Katherine Mansfield, and Malian writer and historian Amadou Hampâté Bâ 
• the libraries of Chinguetti in Mauritania
• cuneiform inscriptions of Bahrain's Dilmun Kings on stone vessels (c. 1700 BCE)
• minutes of the Town Council of Potosí in Bolivia, 1585-1817
• The Munich Manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud held at the Bavarian State Library, composed by 1342 in France
• The Kantilena, the earliest known literary composition in Maltese language that has survived and written in late medieval Maltese
• archives of the European War Office in Madrid 1915-1921, housed at the Spanish Royal Archives

Other additions include collections relating to the memory of slavery, submitted by Angola, Aruba, Cabo Verde, Curaçao, and Mozambique, as well as archives concerning prominent historical women such as girls' education pioneer Raden Ajeng Kartini and travel writers Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Ella Maillart.