Ruins of Desert Cathay: Personal Narrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China

ISBN-13: 9781108077545 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 786 str.

M. Aurel Stein

Opis

In this two-volume work, published in 1912, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862 1943) describes his second expedition to the deserts of Chinese Turkestan in 1906 8. (His account of his first expedition, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan (1903), is also reissued in this series.) Stein intended this account to be read by non-specialists, and, like his previous book, it is highly illustrated and full of interesting details about his journey and the people he met en route, as well as of the important archaeological discoveries which still link his name with the civilisation of this remote and dangerous area. In Volume 2, Stein describes the discovery of the caves near the great trading post of Dunhuang which contained - walled up and almost perfectly preserved - manuscripts, sculptures, silk cloths, and the Diamond Sutra, the earliest complete and dated example of a printed book, hidden by Buddhist monks nine hundred years previously."