Description: Travels through the byways of Silk Road geography, history, archaeology, artefacts and archives, old and new.
I’ve been in the Stein archives at the Bodleian again (checking final references for a forthcoming paper) and, as usual, ended up tempted down several rabbit holes. This blog post is the result of exploring one of the shorter and more easily navigated—written while awaiting retrieval of further material— and highlights the issues that Museums and Librarys can face when acquiring, sorting, cataloguing and caring for large, diverse collections. I will write further on this in future posts on another Dunhuang
In a letter dated 11 September 1927 to Laurence Binyon (1869–1943) at the British Museum, Aurel Stein (1863-1943) writes from India of his amazement of having received a letter from F.W. Thomas (1867–1956) at the India Office in London (The Bodleian Library, MS. Stein 65/251–2). The letter enclosed one of the paintings that Stein had acquired at Dunhuang in 1907. His surprise was compounded by the fact that Thomas had not recognized it as an original but described it as ‘an enlarged proof.’ Given that this
Stein’s acquisitions from Dunhuang and elsewhere on his second expedition (1906–1908) were originally sent to London and then unpacked, numbered and sorted in the British Museum. His expedition had been jointly funded by the Museum and India and the collections were to be duly divided and a portion sent to the India Office in London for dispatch to Delhi. This could not start until they had been unpacked and listed and this took several years. The division was discussed before and during the First World War