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First edition, first impression, of this handsomely produced account of Stein's second expedition to Central Asia between 1906 and 1908, where he acquired a copy of the Tang Dynasty Chinese version of the Diamond Sutra. Found in Dunhuang (Tunhuang), it is widely recognized as the first complete printed book, dating back to 868CE. The find furthered the understanding of trade routes along the Silk Road. "The city of Dunhuang in north-west China, is situated at a point of vital strategic and logistic importance, on a crossroads of two major trade routes within the Silk Road network. The remarkable Mogao Caves, a collection of nearly 500 caves to the south of the city, contain the largest depository of historic documents along the Silk Roads and bear witness to the cultural, religious, social, and commercial activity that took place in Dunhuang across the first millennium" (UNESCO). "Stein's great achievement. was to establish the existence of a hitherto lost civilization along the Silk Route in Chinese central Asia. [He] was the first archaeologist to discover evidence of the spread of the Graeco-Buddhist culture of north-west India across Chinese Turkestan and into China itself. Stein's best-known find came at Tunhuang in 1907, during his second expedition (financed by the government of India and the British Museum), when he reached the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. Discovering thousands of manuscripts, paintings, and textiles walled up in a room in one of the caves, he bribed the custodian to part with many of them. Experts later found them to date from the fifth to tenth centuries AD. They included votive banners, Buddhist texts, and early secular works in a wide variety of scripts and languages, and a large, block-printed roll, dating from AD 868, which proved to be the world's oldest known printed book, a copy of the popular Buddhist work The Diamond Sutra" (ODNB). Howgego IV, S 65; Yakushi S 331; "Dunhuang", UNESCO, accessible online. 2 vols, octavo. Numerous plates, maps and plans including 8 coloured plates and 6 folding uncoloured panoramas, 3 folding coloured lithographic maps. Original reddish brown cloth, title gilt to spines, front cover with embossed gilt roundel showing Athena with arm outstretched brandishing the aegis incorporating the gorgoneion (Stein's personal emblem), top edge gilt, others uncut. Extremities rubbed with short tears to spine ends, corners slightly bumped, stain to front cover of vol. 2, scattered foxing, plates fresh; overall a very good copy.
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