A 100 year Dunhuang flood

From: NUIT A&RT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ADVANCED MEDIA PRODUCTION STUDIO

We’ve had the opportunity here in NUIT A&RT to work in China, on several cultural heritage projects, but our longest and deepest collaboration has been with the Dunhuang Academy. Today I received these photos from one of our associates, Peter Little of the Friends of Dunhuang Foundation. This past week the river that passes in front of the cliff scarp & the grottoes flooded in what was described as a 100 year flood.

Without having spent the time that we have there, it is difficult to imagine what these pictures represent. Annual rainfall at this site in far Western Gansu province is less than two inches a year. At this point in the summer most years, this river bed is a salty trickle.

The report from China is that there was no damage to the cave murals, but the flood closed the rail line and the airport, and caused significant damage to the new, still under construction visitor center.

Harlan Wallach, posted on 23 june 2011

Manuscripts And Travellers

Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-century Buddhist Pilgrim
by Sam Van Schaik and Imre Galambos


Studies in Manuscript Cultures
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: de Gruyter (Sep 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 3110225646

This study is based on a Sino-Tibetan manuscript from the late 960s, carried by a Chinese pilgrim through the Hexi corridor on his way from Wutaishan to India. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction that functioned as a passport as the monk stopped in monasteries on his way. The manuscript is a unique contemporary testimony of the large pilgrimage movement known from historical sources. It also provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.

About Sam van Schaik:
I am based at the British Library, where I run a British Academy-funded research project on Tibetan Chan (or Zen), as part of the International Dunhuang Project. I have also taught undergraduate and postgraduate students at the School of Oriental and African Studies on a part-time basis. My research has focused on the impact of social and historical factors on key issues in Tibetan culture. These include the contemplative tradition of the Great Perfection, the tantric ritual system and its social contexts, and the development of mythical narratives of imperial Tibet. I have also written on the intersection between orality and literacy, and on the social and historical context for the creation and development of the Tibetan writing system.

Horseback Riding and Bronze Age Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes

On Saturday, March 19, 2011 at the Penn Museum was held the Secrets of the Silk Road Symposium.
David W. Anthony gave a lecture "Horseback Riding and Bronze Age Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes".

The people who populated the Tarim Basin during the Bronze Age initially came from the west, and brought with them pastoral herding economies that had been evolving for 3000 years before the oldest of the Tarim ‘mummies’ was buried. This paper reviews the evidence for the development of pastoral herding economies in the Eurasian steppes before and during the Bronze Age. Pastoralism spread from west to east, arriving in the western Altai in the mid-fourth millennium BC. By the time that pastoral populations spread into the Tarim, perhaps in the late third millennium BC, a variety of very different kinds of pastoral economies had evolved in the mountains and steppes to the west.

To watch all published lectures, click HERE

The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia

The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia
By Ron Sela
Hardcover: 184 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (29 April 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0521517060
ISBN-13: 978-0521517065

Timur (or Tamerlane) is famous as the fourteenth-century conqueror of much of Central Eurasia and the founder of the Timurid dynasty. His reputation lived on in his native lands and reappeared some three centuries after his death in the form of fictional biographies, authored anonymously in Persian and Turkic. These biographies have become part of popular culture. Despite a direct continuity in their production from the eighteenth century to the present, they remain virtually unknown to people outside the region. This remarkable and rigorous scholarly appraisal of the legendary biographies of Tamerlane is the first of its kind in any language. The book sheds light not only on the character of Tamerlane and how he was remembered and championed by many generations after his demise, but also on the era in which the biographies were written, and how they were conceived and received by the local populace during an age of crisis in their own history.

About Ron Sela
Assistant Professor, Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of History at Indiana University

"I study the history and historiography of Islamic Central Asia – a region stretching from the Caspian Sea in the west to Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) in the east – in the Post-Mongol era, with an emphasis on the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. My research examines Central Asia from within – not from the perspective of bordering empires, as it is usually accomplished – and most of my work requires a detailed study of unpublished manuscripts, primarily in Persian and Chaghatay Turkic, but also in a variety of other languages (Russian and different European languages, and for earlier periods also Arabic and occasionally, Judeo-Persian).

My recent project, a book about “Heroic Apocrypha” in Central Asia, brings to light an unstudied eighteenth-century corpus of legendary biographies of one of the most formidable figures in the region’s history – Timur (Tamerlane). By portraying the particular circumstances under which these biographies came to life, and by addressing the many political and social changes that our manuscripts described and perhaps even induced, my research delineates Central Asia’s cultural and political boundaries in the early modern era, boundaries that presently witness an intriguing revival."

China invests heavily in protecting Dunhuang from desertification

LANZHOU, June 24 (Xinhua) -- China will invest more than 4.7 billion yuan (723 million U.S. dollars) over 10 years to improve the natural environment of a desert-threatened oasis city that holds one of the world's most impressive ancient Buddhist cave frescoes, local officials said Friday.

The plan for preserving the oasis, in northwest Gansu Province, has been approved by the State Council and will be a major boost for Dunhuang, also an ancient Silk Road town, to fight an uphill battle against desertification, said officials with provincial water resources bureau.

Authorities will build channels to bring water in from outside, promote water-saving technologies and methods, ration the use of water, and plant more trees and wetland plants, according to the plan.

Dunhuang, with a population of 130,000, has been protected from the encroaching dunes of the Kumtag desert by a belt of forests, wetland and lakes sustained by two major rivers and abundant underground water. But in recent years, excessive draining of water in the region has dropped the levels of the lakes, shrunk the wetlands and dried up the rivers.

Government statistics show that over the past six decades the forests of Dunhuang have shrunk by 40 percent, meadows by 62 percent, and the wetlands by 68 percent.

"A large part of salt lakes and fresh water lakes in the oasis had mostly gone," said Gao Hua, director of the Forestry Bureau of Dunhuang.

Gao previously told Xinhua that the Kumtag desert was pushing back the oasis' forest belt three or four meters each year.

Experts say desertification also threatens the preservation of 1,000-year-old Buddhist frescoes in the Mogao Grotteos, which were listed in 1987 by the United Nations' Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization as China's first world heritage site.

Dunhuang is just one example of the effect water shortages have on the vulnerable ecology in the country's northwest, where about 1.7 million square km of territory in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia, or 17.7 percent of China's land space, are covered by desert.

During a visit to Gansu in 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao, who started his career as a geological engineer in the province, called for efforts to "save" Dunhuang from disappearing into the desert.

"We should never allow Dunhuang to become a second Loulan," Wen said, referring to an ancient Kingdom located in today's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Loulan is believed to have been swallowed by the desert about 1,400 years ago.

"It is a good thing that the state is about to give us such major support," said Ren Shenglu, head of the village of Heshui in Dunhuang. "We have been calling for the support for years."

Local officials said they have taken measures to prepare for the implementation of the plan, including promoting water-saving irrigation, advising farmers to grow agricultural products that need less water, and restricting drilling wells, farming and migration.

The Mongol Conquest in World History

The Mongol Conquest in World History
by Timothy May
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Reaktion Books (15 Oct 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1861898673
ISBN-13: 978-1861898678

The Mongol Empire (c. 1200-1350) in many ways marks the beginning of the modern age, as well as globalization. While communications between the extremes of Eurasia existed prior to the Mongols, they were infrequent and often through intermediaries. The rise of the Mongol Empire changed everything: through their conquests the Mongols swept away dozens of empires and kingdoms and replaced them with the largest contiguous empire in history. While the Mongols were the most destructive force in the pre-modern world, the Pax Mongolica had stabilizing effects on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast territory, allowing merchants and missionaries to traverse Eurasia. The conquests also set in motion other changes in warfare, medicine, food, culture and scientific knowledge. When Mongol power declined, it was replaced with over a dozen successors who retained elements of the Mongol Empire, but none of its unity. "The Mongol Conquest in World History" examines the many ways in which the conquests were a catalyst for change. The memory of the Empire fired the collective mind into far-reaching endeavours: the desire for luxury goods and spices that were once available launched Columbus' voyages; the Renaissance was inspired by the innovations in art that emerged from the Mongol Empire: China, for the first time in 300 years was unified, and the Islamic world doubled in size. This fascinating book offers comprehensive coverage of the entire empire, rather than a more regional approach, as well as providing a long view of the Mongol Empire's legacy. It will appeal to all those interested in this vast, epoch-making empire, as well as specialists in the field.

About the Author
Timothy May is Department Head and Associate Professor of Central Eurasian and Middle Eastern History at North Georgia College and State University. He is the author of The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System (2007) and Culture and Customs of Mongolia (2009).

The Third Ōtani Expedition at Dunhuang

From the website of Imre Galambos " Chinese manuscripts" an article by him for the Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archeology of 2008

The Third Ōtani Expedition at Dunhuang: Acquisition of the Japanese Collection of Dunhuang Manuscripts
Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 3/2008: 29-35

Aurel Stein’s 1907 visit to the hidden cave library at the Thousand Buddha Caves near Dunhuang, and especially his acquisition of a large number of manuscripts there, came as exciting news to archaeologists and researchers worldwide. Paul Pelliot’s visit a few months later yielded an equally impressive collection of documents, which was soon to stir the interest of leading Chinese intellectuals. As a result of their efforts, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a government directive to transport the remaining manuscripts to the capital in 1909, with this effectively putting an end to the sale of these to foreign explorers. However, the two members of the third Ōtani expedition were still able to acquire a significant number of documents in Dunhuang in 1911-1912.

Japan was a relatively new participant in the exploration of Central Asia. It had recently demonstrated its economic and military strength by unexpectedly defeating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and emerged as a major player in East Asia. As was the case with European imperialistic powers, Japan’s colonial ambitions were accompanied by an increased interest in the Qing empire, especially its non-Han regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. The archaeological exploration of North-West China, however, was conducted as a private enterprise rather than a government-sponsored project. The man behind these ambitious plans was Count Ōtani Kōzui 大谷光瑞 (1876-1948), leader of the powerful Nishi Honganji Branch of the Jodo Shinshu sect, who sponsored a series of expeditions with the specific aim of exploring the Buddhist sites of the region. While staying in London in 1900-1902, the young Ōtani was fascinated by the discoveries of Buddhist remains in Western China by European explorers such as Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein. He believed that as a Buddhist priest thoroughly trained in the Chinese tradition he would be able to make a contribution to the exploration of the spread of Buddhism in this region. In 1902, when it was time for him to leave London, he decided to return home to Japan with a handful of followers by taking the overland route via Central Asia. Although his own participation in the journey was cut short by the death of his father, his men stayed behind to continue the exploration for a total of two years…

Read the whole article HERE: The third Otani expedition at Dunhuang

Tang Dynasty murals on display in Xi'an

What does China's Tang Dynasty look like through the brushes of ancient Chinese painters? You may find the answer at the on-going mural exhibition at the Shaanxi Provincial Historical Museum.
The show features nearly one hundred mural paintings created around a thousand years ago during the Tang Dynasty, which is regarded as the golden age in China's history.
The 97 mural paintings on display are elaborately chosen from the museum's collection of some six hundred mural paintings unearthed in 14 Tang Dynasty tomb complexes centuries ago.
Historical figures in the exhibits were portrayed with sheer clean-cut lines, complemented by bright colors to give a vivid presentation of the royal lives of the Tang imperial families.
A visitor said, "This is the first time I've ever enjoyed Tang Dynasty murals at such a close range. It's awesome!"
A visitor said, "The silhouettes are portrayed with flowing lines, and the bright colors have survived some one thousand years. It's unbelievable!"



The majority of the exhibits were exposed to the environment in the 1950's and '60s China. But for a long period of time the valuable cultural relics were kept in the storehouse of the museum due to limited protective measures. It took another ten years for the time to become right and all conditions growing mature for the exhibition.
Zhou Boling, researcher of Shaanxi Provincial Historical Museum, said, "The exhibition halls are kept at constant humidity and temperature. We've tried our best to reproduce the underground environment for the mural paintings."
This batch of priceless exhibits is highlighted by a piece portraying nine royal palace maids with various gestures and facial expressions. The one of a girl in a low-cut robe is hailed as "Venus from the Orient" by western researchers for her subtle smile and delicate make-up.



Curious? Wat this video HERE
Source: CCTV.cn

Related stories:
Murals of Tang Dynasty on display in Xi'an 13 May 2011
Ancient murals of stolen Tang tomb back to China 12 May 2011

Long Distance Trade in the time of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Kings

As part of the Secrets of the Silk Road Symposium on March 19, 2011, Joseph G. Manning gave the following lecture:
At the Limits: Long Distance Trade in the Time of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Kings

This brief paper will examine the “pre-history” of the silk road. Although many histories of the silk road proper begin with the first century AD and the interaction between the Roman and Han empires, the story of the road begins earlier, and must begin with an outline of east west trading patterns in the Achaemenid Persian empire and the consequences of Alexander the Great’s campaigns in the East. This paper tells that story. We begin with the Persians and Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire, and then continue into the second century BC, when a higher volume of trade was pulled into the Mediterranean by the demand from the great cities of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome. The story of the silk road is really about the cultural and economic impact of long-distance trade between China and the Mediterranean world, India and China via India and the Red Sea began in the second century BC.

Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes reopen after floods in NW China province

LANZHOU, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, one of the country's three major Buddhist art treasures, reopened as the severe flooding has been effectively controlled in northwestern Gansu Province.

After days of work, the dikes were repaired and traffic resumed to all tourism sites in Dunhuang City. The power supply and telecommunication services also resumed, said a statement released by the Dunhuang City government on Wednesday.

The province's western cities of Jiuquan and Zhangye typically receive little rainfall, relying on water from the icecap of the nearby Qilian Mountain. Located in a basin nearby the desert, Dunhuang is a city affiliated to Jiuquan.

Heavy rains have battered Gansu Province since June 15. In Dunhuang, the rain-triggered floods submerged railways, destroyed a major bridge and hampered transportation and supplies of electricity.

LANZHOU -17 June 2011- Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, a world heritage site in NW China's Gansu Province, was temporarily closed to visitors as of Thursday because of torrential rains, according to local sources.

Reopening of the site will be decided by the weather conditions in the region in the days to come, said Ji Xinming, Party secretary of Dunhuang Academy which is responsible for research, protection and management over the heritage site.

"Due to consecutive torrential rains in the past days, humidity in the caves has exceeded the set limit. The temporary closure is imposed to protect interior murals," said Ji.

"Apart from the high humidity and the damage to the roads in the site, however, the torrential rains seem not to have caused other adverse impact on the caves," Ji added.

Downpours pounded the western part of Gansu Province Wednesday night and Thursday.

The Mogao Grottoes, or the Ancient Caves of 1,000 Buddhas, were listed in 1987 by the United Nations' Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization as China's first world heritage site.

Dunhuang conference in Paris

From IDP ( International Dunhuang Project) Dunhuang conference in Paris

On 14-16 June 2011 a conference was held in Paris on recent achievements in Dunhuang studies, with the title "Rencontres franco-chinoises sur les Etudes de Dunhuang: Actualité de la recherche et publications récentes." The conference was organized by the UMR and EFEO and was held at Collège de France (first day) and EFEO (second day). Participants principally included French researchers and Chinese guests from the Dunhuang Academy, although Helen Wang of the British Museum and IDP's Imre Galambos also gave papers.

The full programme of the conference can be accessed HERE in PDF format.

In the afternoon of the second day participants visited the Musée Guimet and were shown paintings on textile from the Pelliot collection. On the third day they visited the Bibliothèque nationale de France where they had a chance to see some of the rare manuscript treasures from Dunhuang.

1,000-year-old murals make public debut in China

Murals unearthed from the tomb of Princess Yongtai

XI'AN, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Rare murals at least 1,100 years old that were unearthed from tombs in northwest Shaanxi Province debuted publicly Monday at a newly-opened exhibition hall in Xi'an.
The first-ever exhibition of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) murals at Shaanxi History Museum displays 97 pieces of rare murals found in tombs of imperial family members, including princes and princesses, said Cheng Jianzheng, curator of the museum.
The murals were painted on walls of imperial palaces, residences of aristocrats, temples, grottoes and tombs in ancient China.
While most murals in tombs and underground grottoes were found well-preserved, many others, painted in wood-and-earth structures on the ground, had either perished with the buildings themselves or been eroded by the changing temperature and moisture, Cheng said.
To ensure the quality preservation of the murals, they are being displayed in a temperature-and-moisture-controlled environment, Cheng said.
Archeologists say most of the murals unearthed from tomb chambers portrayed scenes of the tomb owners' daily life and were buried with the dead as important funeral offerings.
As only the rich and powerful had murals in their tomb chambers, most of the works portray maids, officers and officials. Many feature hunting, dancing and sporting scenes that represented lifestyles of the upper class.
All the murals were unearthed near Xi'an, which was capital for 13 dynasties and the starting point for caravans that traveled along the Silk Road from China to central and west Asia.
This is why foreigners often appear in Tang Dynasty murals, Cheng said.
The 4,200-square meter exhibition hall is a Sino-Italian project supported by 4.03 million euros of low-interest loans from the Italian government and 18 million yuan from the local government of Shaanxi Province.
All the exhibition facilities have been imported from Italy, which ensures the murals are well protected from harmful gas, dust and human damage.
Shaanxi History Museum, built in 1991, houses more than 1,500 square meters of Tang Dynasty murals unearthed from 20 tombs.

Using ancient grains to remap perceptions of Central Asia

This article is from the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

The Silk Road Symposium held at the Penn Museum in March 2011 was clearly quite a get-together, judging by the personalities involved. Some of the presentations are on Youtube, including one by Dr Michael Frachetti on “Seeds for the Soul: East/West Diffusion of Domesticated Grains,” which has been picked up and discussed by Dienekes on his blog. It’s really worth listening to the whole talk, even at 45 minutes, but in case you don’t have the time, here are the main points.

Dr Frachetti excavated at a place called Begash in Uzbekistan. This is a site which goes back to at least 2500 BC and was used by nomadic pastoralists for many centuries. The dig came up with the earliest evidence of wheat and broomcorn millet in Inner Asia, dating back to about 2200 BC. At left is what the seeds they found look like (click to enlarge).

But here’s the thing. There’s no evidence that the people living at Begash at the time actually ate these things.1 Their teeth just don’t look like the teeth of people who have a lot of cereals in their diet. Basically, no cavities. And there was no evidence of processing either. So what was happening?

The seeds were recovered from a very particular context — a cremation burial. And only in that context. Along, incidentally, with horse remains. Both the cereals and horses were in fact ritual commodities, the excavators think. Not stuff to be consumed every day, but rather exotic commodities to be wheeled out on very special occasions to make an impression. As Dienekes points out, using wheat for funerary offerings goes on still.

Where did the cereals come from? To cut a long story short, the wheat from the west and the Panicum millet from the east.2 Which is the reason why Dr Frachetti thinks we need to remap our thinking about Central Asia. It’s not so much that the people who inhabited these regions were peripheral to the great Bronze Age civilizations, but rather (or, perhaps, also) that they were the link between them.

Footnotes:
Now, I know that Central Asia does not necessarily mean the Silk Road, and things have changed since then anyway, but for an entertaining look at the food of the latter, check out the recent post at The Edible Schoolyard. [↩]
The Panicum miliaceum story is fascinating, with its pre-5000 BCE appearance of cultivated forms in the archaeological record in both China and around the Black Sea, but not in between. It is mentioned as an unsolved puzzle — independent domestication or long-distance contact? — by Prof. Colin Renfrew in his own talk, which refers to the genetic work of Dr Harriet Hunt. [↩]

Previously Unpublished Silk Road Manuscripts Now Available Online

From: IDPuk.blogspot.com




Completion of Digitisation of Dunhuang Chinese Manuscript Fragments in the British Library (Or.8210/S.8401-13891)

In 1987 the British Library hosted scholars from the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. They came with a proposal to produce a facsimile edition of non-Buddhist Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang, to include previously unpublished fragments. The resulting joint Sino-British project conserved all the remaining fragments, including the Buddhist material. This resulted in 6136 more manuscripts becoming available for study.

Thanks to the grant from the Research Institute of Korean Studies, IDP has now completed the digitisation of these fragments, resulting in the publication, for the first time, of most of this material with over 13,000 more images online.

Further information will be available in the next issue of IDP News.

About IDP

IDP is an international collaboration to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet and to encourage their use through educational and research programmes.

Tang Dynasty horses, Xuan Zang and the Silk Road

An introduction to the Penn Museum's famous Tang dynasty horse sculptures with the University of Pennsylvania's East Asian Languages and Cultures graduate student, Sarah Laursen.



The Penn Museum's Keeper of the Asian Collections, Stephen Lang, discusses the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang and the Silk Road.

Secrets of the Silk Road Symposium: Closing Remarks

Closing remarks from Wang Binghua, Director Emeritus of the Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology, and from Philip L. Kohl, Professor of Anthropology and Slavic Studies at Wellseley College, for the symposium "Reconfiguring the Silk Road: New Research on East-West Exchange in Antiquity".
March 19, 2011 at the Penn Museum

Looking East from Constantinople: Byzantium and the Silk Road by Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout

On May 4, 2011 at the Penn Museum a lecture in the series Great Adventures along the Silk Road:
Looking East from Constantinople: Byzantium and the Silk Road by Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout
Medieval Constantinople was the greatest emporium of the eastern Mediterranean, where East and West came together. After a brief overview of the Byzantine capital, the talk will chart the routes merchants took traveling eastward from Constantinople, as well as the cities, sites, and landscapes they passed along the way. It will also examine the luxury goods and exotic commodities they brought back with them.

Serindia, Sir Aurel Stein and the Discovery of the Dunhuang Manuscript Hoard.

Not news but tastefully displayed, Sir Aurel Stein's masterpiece "Serindia" in a blog by Rare and Unusual Images from F.A. Bernett Books

The original was printed in 1921 with 500 copies.
The current price for the complete et of these books is between € 16.625 and € 50.000!

This is what you would get for € 50.00!

SERINDIA. Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China carried out and described under the orders of H. M. Indian government by Aurel Stein, K. C. I. E. Indian Archaeological Survey. With descriptive lists of Antiques by F. H. Andrews, F. M. G. Lorimer, C. L. Woolley, and others ; and appendices by J. Allan, L. D. Barnett, L. Binyon, É. Chavannes, A. H. Church, A. H. Francke, A. F. R. Hoernle, T. A. Joyce, R. Petrucci, K. Schlesinger, F. W. Thomas.
by Sir Aurel STEIN

Bookseller: Librairie Herodote
(Paris, FR, France)

Book Description: Oxford, At The Clarendon Press, 1921. Couverture rigide. Book Condition: Très bon. Edition originale. 5 vol. gds in-4° ; [Text]-XXXIX-de la p. 1 à la p. 547, très nbses reprod. photographiques h.-t. [1-144]/VIII-de la p. 549 à la p. 1088, très nbses reprod. photographiques h.-t. [145-236]/XI-de la p. 1089 à la p. 1580, très nbses reprod. photographiques h.-t. [237-345]-59 plans h.-t. dont 2 repliés in-fine [1-59]/[Plates]-X-175 planches h.-t. [I-CLXXV]/[Maps]-1 carte repliée non ch. [General Map]-1 carte repliée non ch. [Index]-94 cartes repliées [1-94], pleine toile d’époque couleur brique illustrée or, dos lisse imprimé or, filets à froid d’end. et titre or avec fleuron sur les plats, étui moderne, rel. uniforme de l’éditeur, bel exemplaire. Yakushi, Catalogue of the Himalayan Literature, S 717. Édition originale très rare complète illustrée de 345 reproductions photographiques hors texte, 59 plans hors texte, 175 planches hors texte et 96 cartes repliées dans un portefeuille. Tirage : 500 exemplaires. First edition. VERY SCARCE COMPLETE. 500 COPIES ONLY. VERY GOOD SET.

Price: € 50.000

Aurel Stein – Flowers to Lajos Lóczy

From Imre Galambos's Blog "Chinese Manuscripts from April 19, 2011

Last summer we were at Lake Balaton in western Hungary and decided to take a day trip to the Balatonarács cemetery to visit the grave of the famous Hungarian explorer and geologist Lajos Lóczy (1849-1920). In the West, he is mostly remembered as the person who first told the young Aurel Stein about the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang, where Stein later purchased the largest collection of Chinese manuscripts ever found. It is through Stein’s acknowledgment in his publications that Lóczy’s name became known in Dunhuang studies. (His name is pronounced loh-tsee, unlike how it is transliterated in some Chinese or Japanese references.)
Lóczy himself visited China, including Dunhuang, in 1878 as the geologist in the Hungarian expedition of Count Béla Széchenyi (1837-1918). At the time, the manuscript library was still unknown and the members of the expedition only described the wonderful murals and statues in the cave temples. An account of this visit was published in 1881 by Gustav Kreitner (1847-1893), the expedition’s Austrian member, under the title Im Fernen Osten: Reisen des Grafen Bela Szechenyi in Indien, Japan, China, Tibet und Birma in den Jahren 1877-1880. Lóczy’s also published a book and later a detailed scientific report in three volumes, all in Hungarian. To this day, these works are largely inaccessible to the international community. A translation of his description of the visit to Dunhuang was published by Lilla Russell-Smith in “Hungarian Explorers in Dunhuang” (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2000, vol. 10, no. 3: 341-362).
Years ago I have read a biography of Lóczy, which mentioned that Aurel Stein sent flowers to his grave from Kashmir. These were supposed to be some alpine flowers the type of edelweiss. Now that I had a chance to visit the grave in person, I was curious to see whether I could find any flowers. The village of Balatonarács has since been incorporated into the town of Balatonfüred and finding the cemetery was not a straightforward task. Once inside, however, we immediately noticed the grave, erected not far from the entrance, a bit to the left. But it took us a while to notice the flowers, even though they were pressed under a circular sheet of glass right beneath Lóczy’s relief portrait. An inscription in Hungarian read, “Last greetings from Aurel Stein in Kashmir.” Since Lóczy died in 1920, I assume that these flowers date to that year, too. They are withered but nevertheless remarkably well preserved.

Thus this cemetery in a little village near Lake Balaton preserves a tiny piece of history related to the great days of the exploration of Central Asia.

On Tocharian Origins

From "Dineke's Anthropology Blog, May 20, 2011





Where did the Tocharians originate from?
J.P. Mallory's recent talk has been somewhat of an eye-opener for me, as Prof. Mallory brought to my attention two important issues:
The lack of a clear connection between Afanasyevo and the Tarim Basin.
The existence (in Tocharian) of a rich agricultural IE terminology related to cereals, as well as the domesticated pig, which cannot be easily explained if Tocharians arrived in Xinjiang from the steppes to the north, and, ultimately from eastern Europe.
To begin with, I want to point out an important issue: we cannot assume that the earliest Caucasoids of Xinjiang, including some of the famous early Tarim mummies were Tocharian speaking. There are several arguments why this is so:..................................

Interested? Go to Dineke's Anthropology Blog

Her conclusion, I'm glad to share with you:

Conclusion
The mystery of the Tocharians may be that there is no mystery. The Tocharians are revealed to have been just another West Asian branch of the Indo-European family that, unlike most of its cousins, went east, absorbed Northern Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and South Asian population elements, emerged long enough in history to leave us a written record of their presence, before succumbing to the Xiongnu and the Mongols.

Thankfully, by combining the remnants of their language, and fragments of their DNA in their descendants, we are able to reconstruct the history of this, once forgotten people.

200,000 ancient coins from Northern Song Dynasty unearthed, weighing 4 tonnes

Archaeologists in east China's Jiangsu Province have unearthed about 200,000 ancient coins in a well on a construction site in the city of Suzhou.

The coins, weighing around 4 tonnes, were believed to be from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126), the city's archaeological institute said in a press release.

Construction workers found the well and coins first on Wednesday. Archaeologists rushed to the site and spent one day digging out coins in a protective manner.

Archaeologists assumed that the large amount of coins might be hidden by some rich family during war in relatively-prosperous Suzhou. The exact source has yet to be confirmed.

Source: Xinhua

Race to save Buddhas from bulldozers

It might be called the battle of the Buddha's feet, a struggle to rescue one of the great Buddhist sites in Afghanistan.

The deadline has just been cut to a year for a team of Afghan and foreign archaeologists to rescue what they can from the sites of four shrines and temples round Mes Aynak - the Copper Mountain - in the plains of Logar, 25 miles south of Kabul.

The Chinese have signed a 20-year lease to make this the biggest open-cast copper mine in the world outside Africa. They plan to blow up the mountain and what is left of the Buddhist temples, hoping to dig as much as they can of the copper estimated to be worth £45 billion.

Initially, they're offering £800 million a year for the concession.

It is a race between Afghanistan's cultural past and commercial future. A team of 32 archaeologists is moving everything it can from the site, rediscovered in the Sixties, rebuilding one of the temples and putting the treasures in a custom-built museum.

They are helped by 900 local Afghan workers. Initially they were given three years, but under pressure from the Chinese, President Karzai has said the conservation must end for the blasting and mining to begin late next year.

"The site is very important because this was a main junction on the Silk Road. The monks came here and settled between the 5th century and the 8th century, lured by the copper," said Philippe Maquis, the leading French archaeologist at the site. He points to large pieces of handsome Buddhas, complete with swirling drapery - said to be inherited from the Greeks who came here with Alexander the Great.

A battered statue three times life-size shows the Buddha in "Pari Nirvana" - the stage before nirvana, the highest state of consciousness.
Next to the figure are two huge stone feet, more than four times life size. "These pieces are the same style and from the same time as the great Buddha statues of Bamiyan," said Mr Maquis.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were blown up by the Taliban in March 2001. Mes Aynak has not suffered such outright vandalism, although Osama bin Laden moved his main training camp here in 1999. "I think we can really do it," said Dr Omar Sultan, 61, deputy culture minister, a renowned archaeologist. "If we get the funds and the team of 40 archaeologists, I get the job of essential conservation done by the deadline."

Looking across the monastery and the camp for Chinese workers, it is a scene of utter tranquillity. But in two years the mountain which has lured mystics, pilgrims, and entrepreneurs - often all three in one - for more than 5,000 years will be blasted to oblivion.

It is the starting point of yet another invasion of Afghanistan, this time by the Chinese in their relentless charge for the world's mineral riches.

Source: London Evening Standard by Richard Fox

Rescue Excavation of Buddhist Relics in Mes Aynak, Afghanistan

Article by Dianne C. Brown, May 16, 2011

After years of armed conflicts, amongst the terrible human cost, Afghanistan has also suffered the loss of thousands of archeological objects and hundreds of ancient sites.

One of those sites is Mes Aynak, located in a mountainous region 40 kilometres from the capital. Mes Aynak is a hill topped by an ancient monastery. This site was discovered by archaeologists in the 1960s, but it has never been excavated. Archaeologists discovered that, two millennia ago, this region served as a critical conduit in the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China. It is believed that Mes Aynak could provide and entirely new insight into the origin of one of the world’s major religions.

During the late 1990s, the hill was a training camp of Osama Bin Laden. First, the Taliban brutally destroyed the site’s 1,700 year old statues of Buddha, the largest of their kind in the world. Today the ancient monastery is again under threat of destruction, this time from a copper mining company.

In 2007, the Afghan government negotiated a 30-year mining concession with the China Metallurgical Group Corporation for copper production at the Mes Aynak site. Archaeologists have since started emergency excavations in a bid to remove and preserve only those pieces that could still be saved. Dozens of ancient statues, defaced and vandalized, can be found there. The rescue excavation is undertaken by the National Institute of Archaeology and the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan. Only one small part of the site is fully excavated, just enough to reveal a vaulted chapel, monks’ cells and storerooms. Many polychrome terracotta statues were found, including a unique statue of the sleeping Buddha.

Omar Sultan, the Deputy Minister for Information and Culture said that the pace of excavation is accelerating, and will include an increase in the number of archaeologists on site from 30 to 65, and a massive increase in laborers from 90 to 900. While the archaeological works are ongoing, the site will be secured by a force of 1,600 soldiers. Excavation costs for the accelerated project are estimated to be nearly $28 million, and are financed partly by the Ministry of Mines.

Some of the most important finds have already been transferred to the National Museum in Kabul. Unfortunately, the facilities of this museum are often inadequate to appropriately house such valuable pieces. In response, the government has announced plans to construct a new museum just seven kilometers from the site, in Logar province. Both the government and attending scientists hope to move the most important and sensitive material to this new museum.

Deputy Minister Sultan has a personal interest in Mes Aynak. In 1976, he worked on an initial survey of this site together with Soviet archaeologists. Although time is running out for this rescue excavation, Sultan remains an optimist, telling reporters “Yes, we do have enough time. We have an agreement with the ministry of mines to safeguard the archaeology.”

The Copper Mine at Mess Aynak

Open publication - Free publishing - More afghanistan

New Archeological Discoveries in Xinjiang

First dig at Toyoq Grotto finds Buddhist temple ruins
Recently, Chinese archaeologists excavated the Toyoq Grotto for the first time and made a lot of important discoveries, including frescoes, paintings on silk, pieces of literature, pottery, sculptures and articles for daily use.

The Toyoq Grotto was a region where the Buddhist culture of the Central Plains and that of the Western Regions converged. The construction of the Toyoq Grotto started in the Sixteen Kingdoms Period. During the fifth and sixth century, the Grotto was decorated with a vast number of Buddhist temples and caves and gradually became a Buddhist holy site for the ruling class.

Many new discoveries have been made recently in the Toyuk caves of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The caves have been under archaeological excavation since last October.
The original artwork was created in the Toyuk caves between the 4th and 13th century, spanning a period of more than a thousand years.
The caves are the key point for the study of the Buddhist art of caves introduced from regions west of Xinjiang. The painting techniques were brought into China's interior areas from parts of Central Asia and beyond.

The first phase of excavation started from March this year and will come to a close soon. With the in-depth process of excavation, some important archeological finds have been surfaced.
Chen Ling, associate professor of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "What is essential is that we have discovered a central cave painting over a large area and it is integral with a rather good content. Also it is of great importance to the time of cutting inside Toyuk, the art of caves and the origin of fresco. The second is the wall with Uygur script, which may be the biggest one ever spotted in China or abroad."

To know more, click HERE to watch the video.

Salvage work continues on Nan'ao One

30 May, 2011 CCTV.CN
An ancient Chinese ship, Nan'ao One, has captured the nation's imagination as underwater salvage work on the vessel continues.
The highlights of today's operation include a closer look at the main structure of the ancient vessel, including the bow, stern, masts, sails, and possibly the anchors and cargo cabins.
The merchant ship sank in the "San Dian Jin" waters off the coast of Nan'ao Island nearly six centuries ago during the Ming Dynasty, a time of prosperous commerce and foreign trade. It was accidentally discovered by a group of local fishermen in 2007.
Nearly 3000 relics have been recovered from the ship, including a great number of blue and white porcelain pieces. The salvage work is still continuing.

For the video of this operation (45 sec) click HERE

For a live broadcast of the salvage operations on the 25th of May, 2011 (54 min 24 sec), click HERE

Afghanistan

From the Lectures series by the Penn Museum, called "Great adventures along the Silk Road, Dr. Frederik Hiebert held a lecture on Afghanistan on April 6, 2011 at the Penn Museum

A Manuscript with a History

May 1, 2011 was the last day of the exhibition "A Prince's Manuscript Unbound" about Muhammed Juki's Shahnamah at the Asia Society Museum in New York.

On February 9, 2011, art historian Barbara Brend lectured on Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah of Firdausi, the 15th-century Persian illuminated manuscript. (54 min.)
To watch this lecture, click HERE.

New book on the history of Tibet

Tibet a history by Sam van Schaijk

Situated north of the Himalayas, Tibet is famous for its unique culture and its controversial assimilation into modern China. Yet Tibet in the twenty-first century can only be properly understood in the context of its extraordinary history. Sam van Schaik brings the history of Tibet to life by telling the stories of the people involved, from the glory days of the Tibetan empire in the seventh century through to the present day. He explores the emergence of Tibetan Buddhism and the rise of the Dalai Lamas, Tibet's entanglement in the 'Great Game' in the early twentieth century, its submission to Chinese Communist rule in the 1950s, and the troubled times of recent decades. Tibet sheds light on the country's complex relationship with China and explains often-misunderstood aspects of its culture, such as reborn lamas, monasteries and hermits, "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", and the role of the Dalai Lama. Van Schaik works through the layers of history and myth to create a compelling narrative, one that offers readers a greater understanding of this important and controversial corner of the world.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Sam van Schaik is an expert on the early history of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. He is based at the British Library in London where he works for the International Dunhuang Project. He is also the founder of the website www.EarlyTibet.com.

Prized Afghan antiquity is rescued by British art dealer

The 2nd-century Gandharan Buddha thought to have been looted from the Kabul national museum. Photograph: British Museum

An anonymous art dealer passionate about Afghan heritage has teamed up with the British Museum in an effort to buy and repatriate a spectacular antiquity believed to have been looted from the Afghan national museum in Kabul during the 1990s.
The British dealer, who said he had a "very strong emotional attachment" to Afghanistan, resolved to buy the 2nd-century Gandharan Buddha after he recognised it in a photograph sent by a colleague in Japan. The sculpture, which had disappeared in the bloody civil war, had been bought by a Japanese collector.
The British dealer, who is insisting on anonymity but spoke to the Observer about his determination to save the Buddha, said: "I begged him to give it back. He didn't care. In Japan, even if the object is stolen, you can't prosecute. So I decided to buy it."
The problem was that in Britain, purchasing stolen goods is a criminal offence, but the dealer was undeterred. He informed only the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, and a curator, St John Simpson, of his plan.
"It was a big risk, but I had the [museum's] blessing," he said. "I thought that could have helped, although Customs officers don't believe in 'good faith' and there could have been serious trouble. I was doing something very moral, but illegal."
He has an enduring passion for Afghanistan, having travelled extensively there in the 1970s: "I saw the piece in Kabul then. I remember perfectly where it stood. This was my homage to their civilisation and their suffering."
Simpson, curator for ancient Iran and Arabia, said: "We had to seek legal advice. But the consensus was that, if this was the only way in which this piece could be returned, that's what we had to do. The clear public benefit outweighed the grey area."

With the museum's blessing, the dealer used his own money to persuade the Japanese collector to sell the 1.2 metre-high Buddha. Negotiations lasted a year.
Simpson described the rescue as "terribly appropriate", coming as it did on the 10th anniversary of the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan: "They're gone forever. But one very important piece can be returned. This is a very important and stunningly beautiful piece."
Omara Khan Massoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, described it as "one of our most treasured objects". One source put the sculpture's value at £600,000, but the British Museum said it is "without value, given its provenance".
The Buddha, which is shown performing a miracle with flames rising from his shoulders and water pouring from his feet, will be displayed in the British Museum's Enlightenment Gallery from Wednesday, before it is returned to Kabul after the close of "Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World". The show has proved so popular that it has been extended until 17 July.

About 75% of the Kabul museum's antiquities have been destroyed or looted. They reflected the rich heritage of a land that was once a crossroads of eastern and western ancient civilisations.

Source: The Guardian, 29 May 2011