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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IDP Reports: February/March & April/May 2010

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February/March 2010: Download this report as a PDF (213KB).

COLLABORATIONS AND VISITS

  • 22 February: curators and conservators from national museums and libraries in Mozambique and Nigeria, on a visit to the BL, were shown round the IDP studio.
  • 5 March: Susan Whitfield met Jan Stuart, Head of Asia at the British Museum, to discuss on collaboration on digitisation and cataloguing of the Museum’s Stein 3D material.
  • 16–18 March: Susan Whitfield held meetings with various foundations and institutions in New York, to discuss possible funding and collaboration.
  • 21–31 March: Imre Galambos visited Japan, to discuss collaboration with the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo and to give a paper at the Digital Silk Road IDP Workshop. He then travelled to Kyoto where he visited Ryukoku University to discuss continuing collaboration; and on 29 March he attended a conference on Buddhist Manuscript Fragments at Lüshun Museum.
  • 22–26 March: Susan Whitfield visited Delhi for meetings with the Ministry of Culture and the National Museum, to discuss possible collaboration.
  • 29 March: IDP welcomed photographer Yichon Kim on a six-month internship, as part of a collaboration between IDP and Korea University.
  • Intern Ammandeep Mahal completed a three-week placement in the IDP digitisation studio.

LECTURES AND EVENTS

  • 19 February: Sam van Schaik attended a workshop on Tibetan and Mongolian law at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies.
  • 11–13 March: Susan Whitfield attended a conference on ‘Cultural Crossings’ in Charlottesville, Virgina, giving a paper on IDP and taking part in discussions on the Silk Road and on compilation of a union catalogue of Buddhist scriptural texts.
  • 31 March: Alastair Morrison attended a conference on ‘Digitisation of Written Heritage’ at the Institut national du patrimoine in Paris.

PUBLICATIONS

  • Imre Galambos, ‘Another Hungarian Looting China’s Treasures? Sir Aurel Stein, Lajos Ligeti and a Case of Mistaken Identity’, Tonko shahon kenkyu (Dunhuang manuscript studies).
  • Matthew T. Kapstein and Sam van Schaik (eds), Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang: Rites and Teachings for This Life and Beyond. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

FORTHCOMING LECTURES, EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS

  • Susan Whitfield will publish an article on Stein in The Great Explorers, Thames & Hudson.
  • Imre Galambos will publish (1) ‘Scribal Notation in Medieval Chinese Manuscripts: The hewen and chongwen Marks’, Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa. Hamburg University. (2) ‘Japanese “Spies” Along the Silk Road: British Suspicions of the Second Otani Expedition (1908-09)’, Japanese Religions.
  • Sam van Schaik will publish (1) ‘A New Look at the Source of the Tibetan Script’, Yoshiro Imaeda, Matthew Kapstein and Tsuguhito Takeuchi (eds), Old Tibetan Documents Monograph Series, vol.III. (2) ‘The Origin of the Headless Script (dbu med) in Tibet’, Nathan Hill (ed), Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages IV. Leiden: Brill. (3) ‘Towards a Tibetan Palaeography: Developing a Typology of Writing Styles in Early Tibet’, Jan-Ulrich Söbisch and Jörg B. Quenzer (eds), Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Sam van Schaik and Imre Galambos are editing, for final submission to de Gruyter (provisional publication date October 2010), Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-Century Buddhist Pilgrim.

April/May 2010: Download this report as a PDF (299KB).

The Diamond Sutra went on display in the Chinese Print exhibition at the British Museum on 12 May and the Star Chart is on display at the Grand Palais in Paris in their exhibition on Daoism.

COLLABORATIONS AND VISITS

  • 8–9 April: Vic Swift visited IDP partners, at the Berlin-Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften, to install a new server for the IDP German-language website.
  • 13 April: Susan Whitfield met with Claire Warwick, Head of the Centre for Digital Humanities at UCL.
  • 14 April: Sheng Yanhai, from the Dunhuang Academy, returned to China after a five-month internship in the IDP Studio, funded by the World Collections Programme.
  • 21–23 April: Susan Whitfield travelled to Kabul for the opening of a British Library exhibition on images of Afghanistan, 1830-1920. Rachel Roberts was responsible for much of the photography and Vic Swift designed the catalogue. The images will be put on IDP and IDP will also host a website of the exhibition.
  • 22 April: Neville Agnew and Martha Demas of the Getty Conservation Institute visited the IDP studio.
  • 28 April: Abby Baker and Alastair Morrison visited the Confucius Institute at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, where Abby spoke to secondary students and teachers, and Alastair gave a public lecture, about Buddhism on the Silk Road.
  • 7 May: Susan Whitfield met with Dr Vivienne Lo of UCL and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim to discuss an extension and possible funding of the medical manuscripts project.
  • 11 May: The Chinese Ambassador spoke positively about IDP in his speech at the reception for a NLC-BL China Studies Day. Susan Whitfield met with the delegation from the NLC to discuss IDP and their collaboration with the BL.
  • 20 May: Susan Whitfield met with Roger Wallen to discuss a possible joint project with Newcastle University on Hadrian’s Wall and the Chinese Han walls.
  • 27 May: Susan Whitfield met with Mimi Gardner of Seattle Art Museum to discuss possible joint projects.

LECTURES AND EVENTS

  • 13th April: Sam van Schaik gave a presentation at the Royal Asiatic Society, on ‘The International Dunhuang Project: History of Conservation and Development’ at the conference ‘Conservation of Chinese Graphical Collections’.
  • 19 May: Susan Whitfield gave a lecture on ‘Arts of the Taklamakan Kingdoms’ to the Bristol Society for the Arts of Asia.
  • 26 May: Susan Whitfield gave a lecture on the Dunhuang Star Chart and Chinese astronomy to the Astrophysics group at Imperial College.

FORTHCOMING LECTURES, EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS

  • Susan Whitfield will lecture and hold a seminar on manuscript studies in Hamburg in early June.
  • Imre Galambos will publish (1) ‘Scribal Notation in Medieval Chinese Manuscripts: The hewen and chongwen Marks’, Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa. Hamburg University. (2) ‘Japanese “Spies” Along the Silk Road: British Suspicions of the Second Otani Expedition (1908-09)’, Japanese Religions.
  • Sam van Schaik will publish (1) ‘A New Look at the Source of the Tibetan Script’, Yoshiro Imaeda, Matthew Kapstein and Tsuguhito Takeuchi (eds), Old Tibetan Documents Monograph Series, vol.III. (2) ‘The Origin of the Headless Script (dbu med) in Tibet’, Nathan Hill (ed), Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages IV. Leiden: Brill. (3) ‘Towards a Tibetan Palaeography: Developing a Typology of Writing Styles in Early Tibet’, Jan-Ulrich Söbisch and Jörg B. Quenzer (eds), Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Sam van Schaik and Imre Galambos are editing, for final submission to de Gruyter (provisional publication date October 2010), Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-Century Buddhist Pilgrim.

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