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The Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. The State Hermitage Museum announces the exhibition The Caves of a Thousand Buddhas: Russian Expeditions on the Silk Road. The display is prepared by the State Hermitage Museum jointly the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of Russian Academy of Sciences. More than 300 items including the sculpture, wall painting fragments, wood cuts, ancient manuscripts as well as the expedition documents, photographs, maps and drafts brought by the Russian explorers from the Silk Road will be presented. Many of them are displayed for the first time. The present-day Xinjiang (Sinjan) Uygur district of China used to be known in Russia as East Turkistan. Through those deserts and oasises laid the way, which was called “The Great Silk Road”. In the 19th century its territories attracted different Russian, European and Asian expeditions. They opened the new culture, unknown and obscure. The people of those lands were under the influence of Buddhism until Islam came here in the 11th century. Countless number of cave temples are covered with painted Thousand of Buddhas, which is to be the visual presentation of the oriental doctrine of Buddhism. The huge collection of pieces of Silk Road art came to the Hermitage in 1930s. Although a lot of items are presented on the permanent display, the museum shows such a variety of exhibits for the first time. Moreover the collection of the ancient books from the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts have never been displayed before. Owing to those manuscripts, written in 13 ways of writing and in 14 languages of Central Asia and founded within the expeditions of 19th-20th century, different ancient languages were discovered. The exhibition is devoted to the 190th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. Curator of the exhibition is Dr. Olga Deshpande, The Senior researcher of the State Hermitage Museum. The exhibition is accompanied a fully illustrated catalogue. |
 8th century Larger view
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