Aurel Stein on the Silk Road.

Chicago.: Serindia.. 2004.. Maps, colour and black and white photographic illustrations, 143pp, chronology, glossary of Buddhist terms, notes, bibliography, index, very good hardback copy in dustjacket. "Due to its unique position as a crossroads between East and West, the Silk Road was never simply a trade route, but rather a conduit at which varied cultures and religions converged and great civilisations flourished. Many of the world's major faiths thrived there, but Buddhism became the unifying influence. For centuries Buddhist monks and devotees hewed scores of cave temples out of the cliffs situated just outside Dunhuang, an oasis town at the fork of the northern and southern trade routes of the Silk Road.

In 1900, a secret cave was discovered by a Daoist priest among the many caves dotting the cliff face at Dunhuang. Its entrance had been sealed and disguised but, when opened, it yielded an extraordinary hoard of ancient Buddhist manuscripts, documents and paintings, preserved in the desert climate since the early eleventh century. In early 1907 Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1942), a Hungarian-born explorer employed by the British in India, was the first foreigner to gain access to the secret cave archive. His expeditions, first published in the 1920s and here retold, helped to reveal the long-forgotten history of the Silk Road." (Publisher's description). .