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Tails, i. Thus Le Coq lost his opportunity to obtain the manuscripts of the Library. In the meanwhile, Stein had also heard a rumor about the Library Cave from a merchant. In contrast to Le Coq, however, it was in Dunhuang that he heard the news. To Stein, the Mogao Grottoes was a place where he decided it was worth making a short visit. But Stein decided to check out the validity of the rumor anyway. On his first visit, however, the abbot was away begging for alms and so Stein was only shown only one single scroll by a young Buddhist monk. At that point, Stein proceeded on with his original plan and went to excavate the Great Wall site Yumen Guan or Jade Gate Pass 18 where he uncovered numerous manuscripts and antiquities which proved the site was constructed in the Han Dynasty. Although he had achieved enough during his expedition, Stein was still interested in following up on the rumor and went again later to the Mogao Grottoes. This time he was able to see Wang and began to negotiate for a deal to purchase the manuscripts. Stein had immediately understood the significance and value of the manuscripts and so hoped to buy and bring them back to Britain. Stein also received much dubious information and had to sift through to figure out what to believe and what not believe. In this instance, his quick action brought him huge success. Stein however also had his own obstacles which he was unable to overcome. Despite the numerous manuscripts and paintings he was able to obtain from the Library Cave, he missed many manuscripts of historical value. Being denied access to the library itself, everything he saw was brought out and shown to him by Wang or his disciple. More problematic, since Stein could not read Chinese, he was incapable of selecting and considering the quality of the manuscripts by reading them. In reality, it was Pelliot who arrived later who was able to attain high quality manuscripts that Stein had missed. Pelliot was in Urumqi when Stein finished buying the mass of materials at the Library Cave. At that time, Pelliot had befriended Duke Lan, a cousin of Emperor Guangxu who had been expelled from the court as a result of the Boxer Rebellion. This farewell present was one of the manuscripts which had been discovered at the Library Cave. Pelliot had already heard about the rumor in Urumqi, but it was at this moment that he saw the first piece of evidence. Since Pelliot was fluent in Chinese and could read ancient Chinese texts as well, he understood the significance and value of the manuscript and at one glance and immediately set out for Dunhuang. As soon as he arrived at the Mogao Grottoes, he made friends with the Taoist monk Wang, and thereafter confined himself in the Library Cave for three weeks, where he went through the 15, manuscripts-- working alone by candlelight. Pelliot was extremely thorough with his work examining even the fragments. Sorting them out, he purchased some 5, pieces; items that he considered important judging from their inscribed dates and scriptures containing words written in several types of ancient languages. Pelliot displayed his outstanding language ability and his deep knowledge of Chinese culture and history to its full to put together a collection of such excellent quality. Many factors contributed to determining the outcome of the race for antiquities at Dunhuang. Stein had luck on his side at being in such close proximity, but was unable to make the most of it due to his lack of language abilities. Pelliot, on the other hand, arrived second but was able to fully utilize his specialist expertise in attaining numerous manuscripts of high quality. And Le Coq, who was actually close enough to be first, lost all due to the bad luck of the toss of a coin. At the time Stein and Pelliot were buying themanuscripts one after another, China was not yet aware of the importance of these historic materials. And, by the time they realized, it was already too late. When they realized the tragic loss of part of their own heritage, China firmly shut the doors to further foreign excavations and research, and these doors have remained tightly shut since. The news of the discovery of the library of manuscripts in the Dunhuang cave had been reported to the authorities at the time of their discovery. First the report had been reported to local authorities in Dunhuang, who then reported to the government office Yamen at Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province. Because the estimated cost of transport of all the manuscripts from the caves to Lanzhou was as much as to in sycee silver. The Yamen at Langzhou was unable to part with such a large amount of money at that time and so notified the Yamen at Dunhuang to keep the items where they were found. Thus, for seven long years, the Dunhuang manuscripts were left stacked in the grotto without being shown much if any particular interest. It was during this period when the manuscripts seemed to have been for all intents and purposes abandoned that Stein came to Dunhuang. Therefore, Wang Yuanlu, ignorant of the value of the manuscripts, sold them for a very low price compared to their actual value, and used the money for the repair of the grottoes, which was his own main concern. This was followed by Pelliot who came and purchased numerous manuscripts, shipping them back to France. Pelliot, after sending off the bulk of his treasures from the Library Cave, perhaps relieved that his yield was already safely out of China, took some of the manuscripts and traveled to Nanjing, Tianjin, and Beijing 19 , and showed them to the renowned historian Luo Zhenyu and other Chinese scholars. Greatly shocked by what they saw, the Chinese realized at last how serious the situation was. The scattering of the remaining manuscripts continued despite government decrees. Government employees at Lanzhou and other places en route of the transport of the manuscripts to Beijing stole the manuscripts one after another. Furthermore, since a significant amount of the manuscripts were left at Dunhuang, several hundred scrolls of sutras were bought by the Japanese Otani Expedition Zuicho Tachibana and Koichiro Yoshikawa in , and a total of more than 10, items were bought by the Russian explorer Oldenburg. These removals of manuscripts and antiquities from Dunhuang caused great anger among Chinese scholars. The German expedition was also blamed for its exhaustive cutting away and removal of the murals from grottoes at Bezeklik and Kizil. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left, and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasurees and guarded by demons. In the early years of the 20th century, foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures, and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese. Inhalt Prologue. Bibliography of Principal Sources. Get Free Instant Access to this useful resource by entering your name and email below. Far West China. Blog Travel Resources About Contact. About the Author. Continue Reading:. Eurasian Crossroads Review Xinjiang History. Leave a Comment Cancel reply Comment Click to cancel reply. Trou name of thus said Provence was not mansion , Islam was there since 14cenceries back [ Reply ]. Read Download Foreign Devils On The Silk Road PDF – PDF Download Hopkirk describes in amusing detail the nearly-fatal desert crossing by Sven Hedin, the manuscript forgeries bought in bulk by England and Russia, and the stubborn little monk who hid a fortune of authentic manuscripts in a cave. Despite these setbacks, though, each country was able to take away cartloads of valuable items, a fact which still has China bitter. Although published back in , the information Hopkirk shares is still relevant for modern travelers. The only problem with referencing a three decade-old book about Xinjiang is its confusing use of place names. Due to the variety of ethnic groups in the region and the changes over the years in the way we use the Latin alphabet to write Chinese, every city — past and present — has multiple names and spellings. These differences may be trivial to anyone familiar with the region but could pose problems for the casual tourist who wants to do research before they travel. If nothing else it is a humorous look at the evolution of foreigners in Xinjiang. These include books such as:. Buddhist religion had been carried, like silk, along the fascinating routes. According to the legend, the Han Emperor Mingti, who had heard of Buddhism, dreamt of a golden figure floating in a halo of light that was interpreted to be the Buddha himself. Consequently, an envoy was sent to India to learn about the new religion, returning with sacred Buddhist texts and paintings as well as Indian priests to explain the teachings of the Buddha to the Emperor. Other forms of art flourished along the roads, enabling the explorers to play their role of verifiers of fairy tales. However, it has been said that the Gandharan sculptures are the most fabulous examples of the East-West interaction along the Buddhist routes. From what we demonstrated above, we indeed now know that Buddhists crossed the passes from India to Afghanistan in the late 1rst millennium BCE. Buddhist Art then started to incorporate Greek characteristics in sculptures amongst others. This Graeco-Buddhist style was the art called Gandhara Art see image. The greatest explorer of our time [24] was convinced that the invasion of Asia by Alexander the Great had to have left treasures along the routes. When discovering Niya in , Stein then realised evidence of Hellenistic influences on the Silk Road. Indeed, he found clay seals showing the figure of Pallas Athene, depictions of Greek deities and even a sitting Eros. Some portraits even had heads of men with features of barbarians, wholly in a classical style. This discovery probably stands for the most astonishing since the depiction of the Buddha was in human form. Traditionally the Buddah was symbolized by a footprint, a wheel, a tree, a stupa or Sanskrit characters. Stein was astonished. As Luce Boulnois puts it:. However astonishing, Greek influences on traditional Buddhist painting were obvious: instead of a loincloth the Buddha wore flowing robes, had a straight chiselled nose and brow, full lips and wavy hair. Stein made similar discoveries in Endere or Miran. Buddhist stucco relieves, a colossal head of Buddha as well as splendid wall paintings in the Graeco- Buddhist Gandhara style, found in Miran, had him conclude that the city had experienced a golden age during the first post Christian centuries. Although Miran had already been explored by the Russian geoprapher Nikolai Prejevalski in [26] , Stein was the one to have reconstructed the history of the site. When arriving in Kharakoja, he was astonished to find a nearly life-size statue of Buddha in Gandhara style. Gandhara art stands for the most prominent discovery in terms of juxtaposition of techniques but is not the only one. There, he found over Kharoshti [29] wooden tablets written in CE. The assumption was confirmed during his second expedition - while going to Dunhuang - in Loulan where Stein picked up more wooden documents inscribed in Kharoshti script. He discovered paintings of Buddhist monks larger than life-size that were distinctively Indian. Stein, although British, was born in Hungary. His Hungarian roots also played a role in its discoveries, at least in its major one. Stein had heard from a man named Loczy of a Buddhist cave that inhabited paintings and sculptures with Indian Buddhist art influences. This desire to see such material made him go to Dunhuang during its second expedition in Dunhuang was the point where the Northern route and the Southern route converged. Dunhuang not only continues to constitute a field of study today but provided immense scope for scholars to look at the Indian and Tibetan influence on Chinese art. Tibetan Influence. Tibetan Buddhist texts also played an important role for the comprehension of the Silk Road. The ruined temple in Endere, visited by Stein, revealed Tibetan graffiti, confirming the invasion of the eight century which drove the Chinese from the era. In Miran, old tibetan woodslips were excavated. Historians indeed recall that the Tibetan Empire occupied and ruled the Southern Route of the Silk Road and most of the Hexi corridor where the Gobi meets the Taklamakan. The other influence came from Persia present-day Iran. Persia was connected to China through the commercial exchanges and trading routes. As for the influences cited above, the relationship between Chinese and Persian arts expanded. Identical discoveries were made by von LeCoq in Kharakoja where the manuscripts found all had similar persian influences. Being the cradle for multi-existing civilizations, The Silk Road also implied foreign influences in everyday life. Indeed, this trans-Asian highway not only carried goods and art techniques but men. From an art historical and archaeological standpoint, the evidence stands in the abundant depiction of foreigners hence western characters. The excavations and explorations undertook by Stein and von LeCoq also played a matchless role for our awareness of such a phenomenon. The guardian warriors, Lokapalas see image , produced under the Tang Dynasty, stand for a strong evidence of foreign effect on Silk Road arts. These representations could be made of earthenware and directly refer to people, others were strongly influenced by other artistic movements. In Miran, Stein uncovered murals. On one of them, he found a dado of winged angels. In addition to goods, men and art techniques that travelled along the routes, religions were linked to the profusion of influences. Our comprehension of the Silk Road today enables a better understanding of the mutual impact between Buddhist art and other cultures. Indeed, today, scholars are assuredly convinced that the six-foot-high fresco he found there depicts Manes, who in the third century founded the Manichean faith [36]. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Advertisement Hide. The Silk Road and Its Travelers. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Google Scholar. Foreign Devils on the Silk Road - an honest book review

You can discover some of that magic yourself on Undiscovered Destinations Silk Road tours. From China through Iran, taking in North Africa and to the gateways of Europe, the Silk Road trading routes connected the great dynasties of the past. Unofficially this gateway between east and west had been operating much longer. For the modern day explorer, this trading route now offers a multitude of different countries, cultures and amazing historical sites to discover. We believe in taking our time and having a much more in depth experience. Therefore, we have broken our tours of the Silk Road in to each individual country of a combination of countries. For those wanting to start the journey in the West and begin to explore East, our tours of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan will give you a taste of how different cultures met, merged and grew as trade developed. Since reading about the Silk Road as a little girl, I had always wanted to visit Khiva and Samarkand. The Heart of the Silk Road tour lived up to all of my expectations. I look forward to travelling with Undiscovered Destinations again soon. For expert advice get in touch now with our passionate, well-travelled team. The Silk Road is primarily known as a trading route for Chinese Silk, hence the name. However, this ancient network connecting the East to the West is about so much more than that. It was not just silk that moved along the vast trade networks and the traders carried more than just merchandise and precious commodities. The lasting impact of the Silk Road was a combining together of cultures and knowledge that has contributed to our modern society. It may have been named after the Chinese silk of course, but trade along the Silk Road also include salt, sugar, spices, ivory, jade, fur and other luxury goods. To call this trading route a road is a massive understatement as it is so much more than that. Hopkirk is an excellent writer bringing in a myriad of sources to complete this really, really interesting history. Account Options Anmelden. Meine Mediathek Hilfe Erweiterte Buchsuche. Peter Hopkirk. Inhalt Acknowledgements. Maps Note on Place Names. British Museum. The Rise and Fall of the Silk Road. Lost Cities of the Taklamakan. The Great Manuscript Race. Sven Hedin the Pathfinder. The Race Begins in Earnest. Von Le Coq Spins a Coin. The Finest Paintings in Turkestan. Secrets of a Chinese Rubbish Dump. Tunhuang the Hidden Library. Pelliot the Gentle Art of Making Enemies. Spies Along the Silk Road. Langdon Warner Attempts the Unthinkable.

Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia | SHAH M BOOK CO

Google Scholar. For a collection of studies on specific aspects of this movement see Victor Mair, ed. CrossRef Google Scholar. Sergei P. Sharpe, , especially pp. These letters were most likely dictated to a professional letter writer, since women at the time were mostly illiterate. Since the letters were found in Dunhuang, presumably they were never delivered. Personalised recommendations. Cite chapter How to cite? ENW EndNote. Buy options. Skip to main content. About this product. Stock photo. Brand new: Lowest price The lowest-priced brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging where packaging is applicable. Buy It Now. Add to cart. About this product Product Information The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasures and guarded by demons. In the early years of the last century foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese. Recounted with great skill. Show More Show Less.

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