The oldest library in Hungary is fighting to save 100,000 books from a Beetle -BesFettening

Pannonhalma, Hungary tens of thousands of centuries-old books are taken from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an attempt to save them from a Beetle infection that could destroy centuries of history.

The 1000-year-old Pannonhalma Archbey is a vast Benedictine monastery that is one of the oldest learning centers in Hungary and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers remove around 100,000 hand -bound books from their shelves and carefully place them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the small beetles in it.

The drugstore lever, also known as the bread beetle, is often found under dried foods such as grains, flour and herbs. But they are also attracted to the based gluees on gelatin and starch in books.

They were found in a part of the library houses around a quarter of the 400,000 volumes of the abbey.

“This is an advanced insect plague that is detected in different parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated at the same time,” said Zsófia edited Hajdu, the main restaurant of the project. “We have never encountered such a degree of infections.”

Abbey houses historical treasures

The invasion of the beetle was detected for the first time during a routine library cleaning. Employees saw unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes were bent in some of the bookcases. When the volumes are opened, cave holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles chewed.

The abbey in Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary. Sitting on a high hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the oldest collection of books in the country, as well as many of the first and most important written records.

On this photo of Pannonhalma Archbey, a restorer shows an old book with holes on his pages because of a drugstore supply, in the library of Pannonhalma Arbbey in Pannonhalma, Hungary on July 3.

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For more than 1,000 years, the abbey has been one of the most prominent religious and cultural locations in Hungary and the whole of Midden -Europe, remaining centuries of wars and foreign raids such as the Ottoman invasion and occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.

Ilona ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archbey Library, said that she was “humiliated” by the historical and cultural treasures that the collection holds when it comes in.

“It is dizzying to think that a thousand years ago there was a library and that we are the keepers of the first book catalog in Hungary,” she said.

Among the most excellent works of the library are 19 Codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts that before the invention of the printing press in the mid -15th century and tens of thousands of books from the 16th century before thousands of books.

Although the oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately and are not infected, ásványi said that any damage to the collection is a blow to cultural, historical and religious heritage.

“When I see a book chewed by a beetle or contaminated in another way, I feel that it doesn’t matter how many copies are being published and how replaceable the book is, a bit of culture has been lost,” she said.

Books will spend weeks in an oxygen -free environment

To kill the beetles, the crates of books are placed in long, hermetically sealed plastic bags from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes that all beetles will be destroyed.

Before they are again instructed, each book is individually inspected and upholstered. Every book that is damaged by the vermin is reserved for later restoration work.

This photo supplied by Pannonhalma Archbey shows books that are stored in hermetically sealed plastic bags for disinfection in the library of Pannonhalma Arbbey in Pannonhalma, Hungary on July 3 if a beetle threatens its old collection.

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Climate change may have contributed

The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library early next year, is of the opinion that the effects of climate change have played a role in stimulating the Beetle besfeting as the average temperatures rise rapidly in Hungary.

Hajdu, the most important restorer, said that higher temperatures have been able to undergo even more development cycles every year than in cooler weather.

“Higher temperatures are beneficial for the life of insects,” she said. “Until now, we have mainly had to deal with fungal damage in both depositors and in open collections. But now I think more and more insect showers will appear due to global warming.”

The director of the library said that life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a series of rules that are used for almost 15 centuries, a code that obliges them to do everything possible to save the enormous collection.

“It says in the rule of Sint -Benedict that all the ownership of the monastery must be considered of the same value as the holy ship of the altar,” said ásványi. “I feel the responsibility of what this conservation and conservation really means.”