The core of the exhibition is the same as one called The Hidden Treasures of the Silk Road that opened in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Science last November. The exhibition was timed to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of Stein's discovery of the Mogao caves of Dunhuang, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, at a crossroads on the Silk Road. The exhibition in Hong Kong draws on materials from the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Science, the University of Hong Kong Libraries and the private collection of Dr. Paul Kan.
Although Stein worked for the British government as an explorer, he was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1895 and he bequeathed a significant part of his large collection of personal photographs, manuscripts, correspondences, printed and hand-drawn maps, impressions of inscriptions to the academy's library, says library director Gábor Náray-Szabó.
Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) was one of the most significant explorers of the Central Asian trade routes known collectively as the Silk Road. Between them, Stein, Frenchman Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and the German Albert von Le Coq (1860-1930) defined European knowledge of Chinese Central Asia. Stein conducted three major archaeological expeditions to Chinese Central Asia between 1900 and 1916, the second of which took him to the Mogao caves of Dunhuang, where he collected paintings, sutras and other texts, as well as textiles, which form the basis of the Dunhuang collections in London and New Delhi.
The Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery's Exhibition Fascinated by the Orient Life and works of Marc Aurel Stein runs from March 18 until May 4, 2008.
Source: Múlt-kor / Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
