Shaping the Stein collection’s Dunhuang corpus (2): the items from Cave 17’s ‘miscellaneous’ bundles

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In a previous blog post , we looked at the instrumental role played by Wang Yuanlu during the selection of the items from the Cave 17. Wang, who directly chose from the small repository what to hand over to Stein for inspection, was very keen to divert his attention from the so-called ‘regular’ bundles, which were composed for the most part of Buddhist sutras in Chinese and Tibetan. During their first ever transaction, which took place between 21 May and 6 June 1907, Wang Yuanlu therefore began by handing over the ‘miscellaneous’ bundles, which he seemed to hold in low estimation. To Stein’s delight, these contained mixed and diverse materials, such as manuscripts in non-Chinese languages, illustrated scrolls, paintings, drawings, ex-votos, textiles, etc. Stein picked out any of the items that jumped at him as being particularly interesting and made sure to put them aside for ‘further examination’, the phrase that he used to refer to their removal in his transaction with Wang. This
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Imre Galambos and Sam van Schaik return from Qinghai field trip

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Following the in the footsteps of a tenth-century Chinese pilgrim, Imre Galambos and Sam van Schaik spent a fortnight travelling through the Chinese province of Qinghai. They have been working on a book on the manuscripts carried by this pilgrim, now in the British Library's collections. In the tenth century most of this region was under Tibetan rule, and the pilgrim's letters of passage are written in the Tibetan language. Imre and Sam visited a number of old sites mentioned in the letters, including the secluded valley of Dentik and the cave temples of the Tsongka region (including Baima Si, pictured above). On the way, they gained insights into the terrain covered by the pilgrim, and photographed remnants of old paintings which help demonstrate the antiquity of these sites. A longer report will be posted soon.

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