Some of these records tell us about the circumstances of the excavation or acquisition of artefacts from ancient Silk Road sites or about their institutional history, including cataloguing and preservation.
The resources range from copies of maps published in Marc Aurel Stein’s expedition reports to envelopes used to protect the materials he gathered during his expeditions, such as IOL Khot 221/COVER. Others, as seen in the highlights selected below, contain Stein’s correspondence with Paul Pelliot and Lionel Barnett and concern the daily workings of the Stein Collection. Finally, several documents relating to Rudolph Hoernle and the Hoernle Collection can be found under the shelfmark prefix Mss Eur F302.
In addition, a significant portion of the archives are linked to people who travelled to Dunhuang in the 20th century, producing notes and photographs as part of their journey. This includes Joseph Needham’s papers, now kept at the Needham Research Institute.
