WORLD CIVILIZATIONS, HISTORY AND HERITAGE
The Original Chinese
Takeaway
Photo:
Stein (right) conducted "the most daring and adventurous raid
British adventurer Sir Aurel Stein sent home more than 40,000 relics from
his explorations round Asia, most of which are still in the UK. Either one
of history's heroes, or one of its greatest plunderers, the 60th
anniversary of his death again raises the question of whether museums need
to confront their own past.
Stein transported the thousands of manuscripts, paintings and artifacts to the UK and India on the backs of camels. In the 1920s with new interest in their own heritage, the Chinese authorities refused permission for Stein to make further trips to the region. Sir Aurel Stein brought the cultural treasures of the wilds of western China to the vaults of the British Museum. His feats were described by one of his contemporaries as "the most daring and adventurous raid upon the ancient world that any archaeologist has attempted". While his life's work is celebrated in the western world, he is remembered in a very different way by countries whose heritage he "looted".
Photo:
Treasures of Dunhuang
The heritage taken is China's parallel to the Greek claim on the Elgin Marbles - priceless friezes taken from the temple of the Parthenon in the 19th Century: both are unique cultural relics taken away by Europeans. The Marbles are still housed at the British Museum; negotiations with Greece have ended with the museum adamant the historic statues are staying in the UK. A museum which is being built to house them in Greece is set to remain empty. On his first trip Stein crossed the massive Taklamakan desert on an arduous journey. But it was his second trip on which he uncovered thousands of manuscripts and paintings in the Cave of One Thousand Buddhas at Dunhuang, that was to establish him as one of the most important scholars of Buddhist history. But what should happen to all this cultural heritage residing far from its origins? Now the expertise to care for antiquities is universal, heritage institutions of the West have more difficulty maintaining their role as sole guardians of world heritage. A resolution passed in the 1980s by the United Nations agency of education and culture, UNESCO, urged the return of artifacts to their country of origin. It has subsequently chalked up several successes in helping to resolve disputes over cultural and historical items. In many respects, Stein was the ruthless raider some describe. But he did what was normal in the context of the era, says the British Museum's Helen Wang, an expert in coins of the region. "Locally these items would have been traded, bought, sold and the collection would have been destroyed," she says. "He wanted these relics to be where experts could look at them. For him it was irrelevant where they ended up."
Aurel Stein's
explorations along the Silk Road
Photo:
Ancient treasure discovered by Stein.
A fascination with Buddhist writings introduced Stein to the Silk Road - a collection of trade routes across Central Asia connecting China and the Far East with the Mediterranean and the West. While his first expedition across the Taklamakan Desert was arguably the most arduous, it was the second to the Caves of One Thousand Buddhas at Dunhuang, where he uncovered thousands of manuscripts and prized paintings on silk, which was to be the most important. Whole fields of research in ancient China and the history of Buddhism in the region developed from his findings alone. During his life Stein journeyed extensively through Central Asia and the Middle East, intent on furthering the world's knowledge of past civilization and bagging even more heritage in the process. Yet his determination always drove him onto new pastures. Aged 81, the prodigious scholar arrived in Kabul for the first time, intent on exploring Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past. He became ill and died within a week. Most of the Stein artifacts at the museum are not on permanent show because of their delicacy. The Stein room is where the collection's most prestigious silk paintings live, far from public gaze. And in the vaults of the museum lie several thousand more artifacts - carved tablets, pots, figures - in darkness. But not for long.
Photo: Block printing, among several thousand manuscripts at the British Library is the Diamond Sutra, dated 868 AD, the first example of dated block printing. It was also found at the Dunhuang caves. The manuscripts are believed to have been sealed up and abandoned in 1000 AD due to persecution of Buddhists by the Chinese.
Through the museum's digitization process the whole collection
will soon be accessible to the public on the internet. A parallel digitization
program, the International Dunhuang Project, is going on at the nearby British
Library, a result of more than two decades of academic collaboration. The
library, in collaboration with the museum, is also putting on an exhibition of
Stein's manuscripts, paintings and artifacts next year. Yet while the question
of returning the Dunhuang treasures has arisen several times - the Chinese
Worker's Daily carried a campaign for their return several years ago - Chinese
authorities have never formally brought up the issue of the Dunhuang
treasures. Chinese academics have long recognized Stein's establishment and
development of archaeology in the region, but have severely castigated his
"destruction and plundering" when acquiring the antiquities. His journeys are
widely regarded as having been severely uncomfortable. Despite drawing up
detailed plans for long stays in remote locations, the harsh conditions often
won the day. During his travels, Stein suffered from recurrent malaria,
stomach problems and lost toes to frostbite.