Stein: Han Chinese Documents Obtained from the Third Central Asian Archaeological Expedition (Non-Buddhist Texts) (Vol. 1 & 2)

Author: Sha Zhi, Wu Fangsi
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: This book collects a large number of ancient documents and artifacts discovered during Stein's Third Western Regions (Central Asia) Expedition (1913-1916) in Xinjiang and Gansu (including Hetian, Loulan, Turpan, Dunhuang, Juyan Heishui, etc.). The documents are written in various languages, such as Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uyghur, Sogdian, Turkic, Uyghur, Xixia, and Persian (with Chinese accounting for four-fifths). The content covers politics, economy, culture, ethnicity, language, Sino-Western transportation, and more, including edicts, letters, household registration records, land tax records, ancient books, medical texts, children's readers, and talismans. The time span ranges from the Wei and Jin dynasties to the Xixia and Yuan dynasties, with the majority from the Jin and Tang periods. The book contains 1,500 images, with facsimiles of the original texts and illustrations, arranged in the order of Stein's third expedition route. It sequentially includes Han Chinese documents related to social content from the various sites surveyed during this investigation.