Ruins of Desert Cathay: Personal Narrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China (Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology)

by Aurel Stein

In this two-volume work, published in 1912, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862 1943) describes his second expedition to the deserts of Chinese Turkestan in 1906 8. (His account of his first expedition, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan (1903), is also reissued in this series.) Stein intended this account to be read by non-specialists, and, like his previous book, it is highly illustrated and full of interesting details about his journey and the people he met en route, as well as of the important archaeological discoveries which still link his name with the civilisation of this remote and dangerous area. In Volume 1, Stein describes the problems of setting up the expedition and the excitement and perils of the route, which took him through the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier and the kingdom of Afghanistan, ending with his arrival at the western extremity of the Great Wall of China."

Genres: Travel, History

796 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 1996

About the author

Sir Marc Aurel Stein (usually known as Aurel Stein) KCIE, FBA (Hungarian: Stein Márk Aurél) (26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at various Indian universities.

Stein was born in Budapest into a Jewish family. His parents had him and his brother, Ernst Eduard, baptised as Lutherans, while his parents and sisters remained Jews (a common way at the time to increase the chance of one's sons being successful). He later became a British citizen and made his famous expeditions with British sponsorship.

Reviews

[Jing · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a fascinating account of Stein's second trip to innermost Asia, and holds minute details regarding the unimaginable doubts, hardships and challenges he and his men overcame in order to explore and uncover the long deserted portions of the Silk Road that have mostly faded into mere legend by the time their trip began. Against almost overwhelming odds, Stein managed to follow clues pieced together from ancient texts (Marco Polo and Xuan Zang are among the sources he cited with the familiarity of an old friend) and more recent excavations (he mentions Hedin by name and at one point picks up a ruler Hedin left behind several years earlier at an ancient ruin in the middle of the desert). Stein successfully found various long-abandoned sites for ancient forts, villages and temples along the desert road to western China and successfully excavated an amazing amount of ancient Silk Road artifacts at a rather turbulent historical time period during the twilight years of the Qing dynasty--this was right before the central government in China fell apart and made foreign explorations [and some may say plundering] of that part of the world all but impossible.

It took me a while to finish this book--I started it a couple of years ago, read it on and off, picking it up from time to time, sometimes re-reading certain parts as if coming back to an old friend, but in no real hurry to finish. Stein's writing style is fairly matter of fact--he doesn't wax poetic in many spots and adopts a rather heroic stoicism toward personal hardships, glossing over the grimmer aspects of desert travel on the backs of camels and other livestock. And yet, I feel cowed by his love and passion for geographical explorations and archaeological studies, his dedication and enthusiasm leaping off every page. I could feel the sand between my fingers and the harshness of the desert winters between the lines. The matter of fact way in which he outlined his adventures instilled wanderlust in me and an enduring fascination with Silk Road history, so powerful and infectious is the writer's obvious love for his subject.

Reading this book, I cannot help admiring this amateur historian, this obscure clerk living at the furthest outpost of the British Empire during its waning days who dedicated much of his time on earth to risking life and limb to prove the truth of ancient legends and writing up the findings of his dangerous excursions so as to add to the sum of [Western] human knowledge.

For obvious reasons, there seems to be significant resentment within Chinese scholarly circles for his role in removing the unimaginably rich printed materials, some of them in dead /obscure languages, from the Library Cave in Dunhuang-- a significant portion of those printed materials are even now lying in storage in the dark back rooms of the British Museum. The modern controversy surrounding the activities of Stein and other explorers/archaeologists like him are perhaps part of the reason only a few of the Silk Road artifacts uncovered and removed by Stein from his trips to inner Asia are now on public display at the British Museum, with the vaguest descriptions of their provenance. This book provides helpful background re his methods for finding, removing and collecting these materials for the British Museum, and it's pretty eye-opening to see how field archaeologists have to improvise methods of safe transport given the harsh desert climate and road conditions in order to send large pieces of centuries-old buildings and walls back to where scholars may safely study and preserve them in leisure and safety.

Stein's activities in Dunhuang are not detailed in this book, and I look forward to reading about them in his other publications. Since I encountered Stein's writings in college, I've visited some of the sites outlined in this book and, in one of those exciting coincidences which makes life wonderful, during one of my trips to an obscure part of a Chinese buddhist cave shrine on the outskirts of Dunhuang, I found a century-old three-line graffiti written in Chinese by Stein's trusted Chinese secretary naming the time and circumstances of Stein's visit to the place, the ink as fresh as if the lines were written yesterday and the tone filled with pride and wonder at having arrived thus far in western China at the end of their hard journey. No matter the ethics of Stein's excavations, I think, as this book makes it clear, he had love and respect for the regions he explored, and his works and his writings undoubtedly helped to set up a fascinating study of one of the most enduring land routes for global trade in early history.