International Dunhuang Project: The Silk Road Online

摘要

The International Dunhuang Project (IDF) makes images and information from manuscripts,textiles, paintings and artifacts from Dunhuang and other archaeological sites from the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet in a variety of languages. After archaeologists discovered the ruins of ancient cities and sites along the Silk Road in 1900, including the discovery of a Buddhist library in a cave near Dunhuang, most of the artifacts and manuscripts were dispersed to institutions around the world. This website brings together, in digital form, the artifacts from those collections. As of August 2013, the IDP database contained over 400,000 images and 130,000 database entries. The database also includes an extensive bibliography relating to Central Asian sites, manuscripts and artifacts. The website is an international collaboration with the British Library acting as the project directorate.