Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang

A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang

Doumy, Mélodie

Paperback

Gifts & Stationery GeneralChinese HistoryChinese Art

Publisher Price: $19.99

ISBN10: 071235526X
ISBN13: 9780712355261
Publisher: British Library
Published: Sep 16 2025
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.57
Height: 0.47 Width: 5.51 Depth: 7.64
Language: English
The oasis of Dunhuang, at the edge of the Gobi Desert, was once a bustling town on the famous Silk Road connecting China and the Mediterranean. But there was more to this verdant oasis than trade. For more than 1,000 years, Dunhuang was also an important pilgrimage site, a cultural melting pot where ideas, technologies and art flowed freely. People from many cultures lived, travelled through, worked and worshipped here. In the remarkable Buddhist cave complex just outside Dunhuang, a wealth of manuscripts, documents and artworks remained sealed for nearly 900 years. This astonishing time capsule opens windows onto the intimate worlds of artists and scribes, merchants and fortune-tellers, diplomats, Buddhists and nuns. Detailing life in and around Dunhuang during the first millennium, this book draws on personal letters, wills, paintings, sculptures and more, encompassing several languages, faiths and cultures including Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Christianity; and spans topics as diverse as literature, astronomy, medicine, politics and art. Highlights from these ancient texts include: * The Diamond Sutra, the world's earliest complete printed book with a date, and one of the most influential Buddhist texts ever composed in East Asia. * The Dunhuang star chart, the earliest known atlas of the night sky from any civilisation. * The Old Tibetan Annals, the earliest surviving historical document in Tibetan, giving a year-by-year account of the Tibetan Empire between 641 and 764.

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