The collection, which roughly spans the second century BCE to the 14th century CE, contains almost 50,000 items written on paper, wood and other materials in more than 20 languages and scripts, including Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Tangut, Khotanese, Kuchean, Sogdian, Uighur, Turkic and Mongolian. It also includes a few paintings on hemp and paper, several textile fragments, and artefacts such as sutra wrappers, paper cuts and paste brushes.
All of these belong to two important collections gathered at the beginning of the 20th century:
- The Stein Collection, with over 45,000 manuscripts and printed items. The collection also includes some of the aforementioned paintings on hemp and paper, textile fragments, and artefacts such as sutra wrappers, paper cuts and paste brushes. Alongside these are over 10,000 photographic prints, negatives and lantern slides taken by Marc Aurel Stein in India, Pakistan, Chinese Central Asia, Iran, Iraq and Jordan.
- The Hoernle Collection, is much smaller, with over 2,000 items.
In addition to these holdings, the British Library also has a number of historic photographs documenting sites along the Eastern Silk Roads. They were taken by a number of individuals, such as Marc Aurel Stein, Irene Vincent, Raghu Vira. The British Library is also the custodian of the digital photographs taken by the IDP team to document these archaeological sites.
