During the riots of recent days in Cairo was almost completely burned the building of the Scientific Institute of Egypt. Some of the documents destroyed were from the era of Napoleon Bonaparte's French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801).

The building of the Institute of Science on Saturday suffered the impact of bombs. Volunteers helped save an estimated 30,000 total of 196,000 books that were in the school library. Among the thousands of unique items was reduced to ashes 'Description of Egypt', commissioned by Napoleon to a group of scientists during his campaign on the Nile

The Minister of Culture of Egypt, Abdel Hamid, called the fire "a catastrophe for science," and announced that it will work with specialists in the restoration of the works concerned, although the chances of recovering the 'Description de l'Egypte' are null .

Possible causes of fire named arson. The Institute is located near the upper house of Egyptian Parliament, against which the rebels threw Molotov cocktails.

A spokesman for the Association for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Hagag Ibrahim, told Al Arabiya that the institute was subjected to "the Tatar invasion" and compared the Vandals with the Mongols, who burned the libraries in Baghdad in 1258.

According to Ibrahim, the invasion of Egypt Institute gives to organizations such as UNESCO a reason to intervene. Ruled that international organizations could take under its control the historical and cultural heritage of Egypt.

Ibrahim proposed to France to take the initiative and added that Egypt could be excluded from international cultural organizations if such incidents do not stop.

After the fire many citizens of Cairo rushed to the scene to help school employees to remove the rubble, trying to save at least some of the documents kept in the building.

Full article at: http://actualidad.rt.com/tiempolibre/cultura/issue_33861.html?rc=1