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 Lectures: Silk on the Silk Road

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Silk on the Silk Road was an afternoon of lectures by scholars, curators and conservators held on the 11 April 2004 as part of IDP’s 20th anniversary celebrations at the British Library, London. Intended for a general audience, the talks introduced the Silk Road and the textiles collections held in London and worldwide. All the presentations and audio recordings are available to download below.

Silk for Books and Buddhism: the British Library and British Museum Collections
Susan Whitfield, Director, IDP, The British Library
Download the audio file MP3 40.4MB
Download the presentation PDF 63.3MB

Silk in Shoes and Clothing: V&A and British Museum Collections
Helen Persson, Curator Chinese Textiles and Dress, V&A
Download the audio file MP3 41.4MB
Download the presentation PDF 86.9MB

Silk as Money
Helen Wang, Curator, East Asian Money, The British Museum
Download the audio file MP3 30.4MB
Download the presentation PDF 11.2MB

Silks from the Silk Road
Zhao Feng, Director, The National Silk Museum, China
Download the audio file MP3 58.1MB
Download the presentation PDF 16.6MB

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