The Call

After one of the Turfan archaeological expeditions in the early 1900s, a fragment of a Manichaean text written in Uyghur and Old Turkic found its way to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Originating from the Northern Silk Road region (now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China), these "fragmented leaves" became a source of inspiration for Rawi Hage: "I was born near Byblos in Lebanon. The ancient city of Byblos is believed to be the place where the first alphabet was invented." Encountering this rare and precious manuscript, with its layered and multi­colored words, Hage reflects on the movement, uprooting, displacement and migration of both objects and people.