Photo:
Aurel Stein's
explorations along the Silk Road
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." 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.
TREASURES
Photo:
Stein's grave in Kabul
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. 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.
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