[caption id="attachment_2084" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Kammavācā (detail) BG 83700-2 © RMN (musée Guimet, Paris)/Benjamin Soligny / Raphaël Chipault"][/caption]

The National Museum of Asian Art (Musée Guimet), Paris, France,  presents for the first time an exceptional collection of manuscripts and artifacts preserved in Burmese collections. 

The exhibition, displayed in the historic library of the museum’s rotunda, will present gold lacquered books - kammavaca -, manuscripts written on olles (palm leaves) and ink-written works on traditional fan-fold paper - parabaik. Manuscript books were extensively used until the late nineteenth century to record both religious and secular literature, or horoscope books, medical and pharmaceutical treaties, archival documents or official records, public or private. A plan of the ancient city of Ava, former longtime capital of the country, a nineteenth century teak model of a large religious building from the Mandalay area, and an amazing astrological chart incised in an ivory tusk, will complete the exhibition. The exhibition will end January 23 2012. Visit the exhibition website:  Lacquer and Gold, Burmese Manuscripts