Manuscripts come in many shapes and sizes, including scrolls, booklets, concertinas and loose-leaf pothis, and can be made from paper, silk, leather or wood. Most are written by hand with a pen or a brush, and the collections also contain early examples of printed books, such as the famous scroll of the Diamond Sutra dated to 868.
The most significant single site for manuscripts is Cave 17 in the Buddhist cave complex at Dunhuang, which contained manuscripts in the Chinese and Tibetan languages, with smaller groups of Khotanese, Turkic, Sanskrit and Sogdian manuscripts.
Other important sites include the ancient cities of Niya and Loulan, where many wooden documents in the Gandhari language were discovered, the Tibetan forts at Miran and Mazar Tagh, and the ancient kingdoms of Khotan and Turfan, where manuscripts in Khotanese and Uyghur languages were found. Thousands of manuscripts from the Tangut kingdom are also found in the collections.
Since Buddhism was the most popular religion along the Silk Roads in the first millennium CE it features in many manuscripts, but other religions, including Daoism, Bon and Zoroastrianism are also represented. Military and official documents, as well as legal contracts and other ephemeral material have been invaluable in reconstructing the everyday life of people along the Silk Roads.
