British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
A HUNDRED YEARS OF DUNHUANG, 1907-2007
Abstracts
The Dunhuang Collection in the National Museum, New Delhi, India
Chhaya Bhattacharya-Haesner, Berlin
The objects were brought to India and later divided, mainly between London and Delhi. Under Stein’s numbering system each accession number indicates provenance, exact find spot and series number of the find at that place. This March, my successor presented a new, separate system (‘National Museum’s Numbers), to supplant Stein’s unitary (Delhi/London) system. After taking charge of the Stein Collection in the National Museum, Delhi, I carried out its first-ever complete verification, registering 11,837 objects, including some 300 banners, 2,000 pieces of stucco, 600 textile fragments, and 900 pieces of wall paintings. Over 1000 objects are from Dunhuang. The work was supervised, checked and finally approved by a joint museum/ministry Expert Committee in October 1990, in a report recommending the work as the base for future work. After leaving the Museum, I presented the Committee’s and my own recommendations at the IGNCA in 1997 and 2000 (IICAS- and Unesco-sponsored seminar) and, in 1995, at the BM’s Stein Day. The various recommendations and reports should be implemented; digitisation of objects should be undertaken; research on Dunhuang banners, of which I have done two-thirds, should be completed; all research work should be of a comparative nature; preservation should be kept in mind.