Sir Marc Aurel Stein, KCIE,FRAS,FBA[1]
(Hungarian: Stein Márk Aurél; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at Indian universities.
Stein was also an ethnographer, geographer, linguist and surveyor. His collection of books and manuscripts bought from Dunhuang caves is important for the study of the history of Central Asia and the art and literature of Buddhism. He wrote several volumes on his expeditions and discoveries which include Ancient Khotan, Serindia and Innermost Asia.
Stein was born to Náthán Stein and Anna Hirschler, a Jewish couple residing in Budapest in the Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire. His parents and his sister retained their Jewish faith but Stein and his brother, Ernst Eduard, were baptised as Lutherans. At home the family spoke German and Hungarian,[2] Stein graduated from a secondary school in Budapest before going on for advanced study at Universities of Vienna, Leipzig and Tübingen. He graduated in Sanskrit and Persian and received his PhD from Tübingen in 1883.[3]
In 1884, he went to England to study oriental languages and archaeology. In 1886, Stein met the Indologist and philologist Rudolf Hoernlé in Vienna at a conference of Orientalists, learning about an ancient mathematical manuscript discovered in Bakhshali (Peshawar).[4] In 1887 Stein went to India, where he joined the University of the Punjab as Registrar. Later, between 1888 and 1899, he was the Principal of Oriental College, Lahore.[5] During this time, under his supervision Raghunath Temple Sanskrit Manuscript Library at Jammu was established which treasures 5000 rare manuscripts.[6]
Genesis
Stein was influenced by Sven Hedin's 1898 work Through Asia. In June 1898, he sought the help of Hoernle and a collaboration to find and study Central Asian antiquities. Hoernle was enthusiastic as he had already deciphered the Bower Manuscript and Weber Manuscript by then, found these to be respectively the oldest known birch bark and paper manuscripts of ancient India at the time, had received more artefacts and manuscripts but was concerned about the circumstances of their discovery and their authenticity. He recommended that Stein prepare an expedition proposal and submit it to the Governments of Punjab and India.[4] Stein sent a draft proposal to Hoernle within a month. Hoernle discussed it with Lt Governor of Punjab (British India), who expressed enthusiasm. Stein then submitted a full proposal to explore, map and study the antiquities of Central Asia as per the recommendations of Hoernle, who personally petitioned both the Government of Punjab and Government of India, lobbying for a quick approval. Within weeks, Stein's proposal was informally approved. In January 1899, Stein received the formal approval and funds for his first expedition.[4] Stein thereafter received approval and support for additional expeditions to Chinese Turkestan, other parts of Tibet and Central Asia where the Russians and Germans were already taking interest. He made his famous expeditions with the financial support of Punjab government and the British India government.[4]
The four expeditions
Photograph of Aurel Stein, with his dog and research team, in the Tarim Basin
Stein made four major expeditions to Central Asia—in 1900–1901, 1906–1908, 1913–1916 and 1930.[7] He brought to light the hidden treasure of a great civilization which by then was practically lost to the world. One of his significant finds during his first journey during 1900–1901 was the Taklamakan Desert oasis of Dandan Oilik where he was able to uncover a number of relics. During his third expedition in 1913–1916, he excavated at Khara-Khoto.[8] Later he explored in the Pamirs, seeking the site of the now-lost Stone Tower which the 2nd century polymath Claudius Ptolemy had noted as the half-way mark of the Silk Road in his famous treatise Geography.[9]
Map of Taklamakan from Stein's Serindia 1921, vol. V.Letter from Aurel Stein to Rudolf Hoernle from Kashgar. Dated 25 May 1901.
The British Library's Stein collection of Chinese, Tibetan and Tangut manuscripts, Prakrit wooden tablets, and documents in Khotanese, Uyghur, Sogdian and Eastern Turkic is the result of his travels through central Asia during the 1920s and 1930s. Stein discovered manuscripts in the previously lost Tocharian languages of the Tarim Basin at Miran and other oasis towns, and recorded numerous archaeological sites, especially in Iran and Balochistan.
When Stein visited Khotan he was able to render in Persian a portion of the Shahnama after he came across a local reading the Shahnama in Turki.[10]
During 1901, Stein was responsible for exposing forgeries of Islam Akhun, as well as establishing the details and the authenticity of manuscripts that had been discovered before 1896 in northwest China.[4]
Stein's greatest discovery was made at the Mogao Caves, also known as "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas", near Dunhuang in 1907. It was there that he discovered a printed copy of the Diamond Sutra, the world's oldest printed text, dating to AD 868, along with 40,000 other scrolls (all removed by gradually winning the confidence and bribing the Taoist caretaker).[11] He took 24 cases of manuscripts and 4 cases of paintings and relics. He was knighted for his efforts, but Chinese nationalists dubbed him a burglar and staged protests against him, although others have seen his actions as at least advancing scholarship.[12][13] His discovery inspired other French, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese treasure hunters and explorers who also took their toll on the collection.[14] Aurel Stein discovered 5 letters written in Sogdian known as the "Ancient Letters" in an abandoned watchtower near Dunhuang in 1907, dating to the end of the Western Jin dynasty.[15]
During his expedition of 1906–1908 while surveying south of the Johnson Line in the Kunlun Mountains, Stein suffered frostbite and lost several toes on his right foot.
When he was resting from his extended journeys into Central Asia, he spent most of his time living in a tent in the alpine meadow called Mohand Marg which lies at the mouth atop the Sind Valley. Years earlier, working from this idyllic spot he translated Rajatarangini from Sanskrit into English, which had then been published in 1900.[16][17] A memorial stone was erected in Mohand Marg on 14 September 2017 where Stein used to pitch his tent.[18]
The fourth expedition to Central Asia, however, ended in failure. Stein did not publish any account, but others have written of the frustrations and rivalries between British and American interests in China, between Harvard's Fogg Museum and the British Museum, and finally, between Paul J. Sachs and Langdon Warner, the two Harvard sponsors of the expedition.[19]
Photograph of Aurel Stein's grave marker in the Sherpur Cantonment, Kabul
Stein was a lifelong bachelor, but was always accompanied by a dog named "Dash" (of which there were seven).[20][21] He became a British citizen in 1904.[22] He died in Kabul on 26 October 1943 and is buried there in the Sherpur Cantonment.[23]
Stein, as well as his rivals Sven Hedin, Sir Francis Younghusband and Nikolai Przhevalsky, were active players in the British-Russian struggle for influence in Central Asia, the so-called Great Game. Their explorations were supported by the British and Russian Empires as they filled in the remaining "blank spots" on the maps, providing valuable information and creating "spheres of influence" for archaeological exploration as they did for political influence.[24]
Fragment of carpet discovered by Aurel Stein in a refuse pit at Loulan, Xinjiang, and attributed to 3rd–4th century
1896. "Notes on the Ancient Topography of the Pīr Pantsāl Route." Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXIV, Part I, No. 4, 1895. Calcutta 1896.
1896. Notes on Ou-k'ong's account of Kaçmir. Wien: Gerold, 1896. Published in both English and German in Vienna.
1898. Detailed Report on an Archaeological Tour with the Buner Field Force, Lahore, Punjab Government Press.
1900. Kalhaṇa's Rājataraṅgiṇī – A Chronicle of the Kings of Kaśmīr, 2 vols. London, A. Constable & Co. Ltd. Reprint, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1979.
1918. "Routes from the Panjab to Turkestan and China Recorded by William Finch (1611)." The Geographical Journal, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Mar., 1918), pp.172–175.
1925 Innermost Asia: its geography as a factor in history. London: Royal Geographical Society. Geographical Journal, Vol. 65, nos. 5–6 (May- June 1925)
1929. On Alexander's Track to the Indus: Personal Narrative of Explorations on the North-West Frontier of India. London, Macmillan & Co. Reprint: New York, Benjamin Blom, 1972.
1932 On Ancient Central Asian Tracks: Brief Narrative of Three Expeditions in Innermost Asia and Northwestern China. Reprinted with Introduction by Jeannette Mirsky. Book Faith India, Delhi. 1999.
1940 Old Routes of Western Iran: Narrative of an Archaeological Journey Carried out and Recorded, MacMillan and co., limited. St. Martin's Street, London.
1944. "Archaeological Notes from the Hindukush Region". J.R.A.S., pp.1–24 + fold-out.
A more detailed list of Stein's publications is available in Handbook to the Stein Collections in the UK,[8] pp.49–61.
Deuel, Leo. 1970. Testaments of Time, p. 459. Baltimore, Pelican Books. Orig. publ. Knopf, NY, 1965; "Collecting Aurel Stein"Archived 3 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, The Caxtonian Vol. XIX, No. 2, November 2011.
Sims-Williams, N. (15 December 1985). "ANCIENT LETTERS". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol.II. pp.7–9. Archived from the original on 13 October 2023. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
Keramidas, Kimon. "SOGDIAN ANCIENT LETTER II". NYU. Telling the Sogdian Story: A Freer/Sackler Digital Exhibition Project. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
Susan Whitfield, ed. (2004). "Sogdian Ancient Letter No. 3. Reproduced". The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith. p.248.
Sims-Williams, Nicholas. "Ancient Letters". THE SOGDIANS Influencers on the Silk Roads. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023.
Brysac, Shareen Blair (November–December 1997). "Last of the "Foreign Devils"". Archaeology. 50 (6). Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
"Gold Medal Recipients"(PDF). Medals and Awards. Royal Geographical Society. Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
Deuel, Leo. 1965. Testaments of Time; the Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records. Knopf, New York, 1965. paperback reprint: Pelican, Baltimore, 1970.
Falconer, John et al. 2002. Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Budapest, LHAS and British Museum. ISBN963-7451-11-0.
Falconer, John et al. 2007. "Supplement to the Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Budapest, LHAS. ISBN978-963-508-545-3.
Hansen, Valerie. 2012. The Silk Road: A New History, Oxford University Press ISBN978-0195159318.
Kelecsényi, Ágnes, 2004. "Stein Aurél (1862–1943) És a Magyar Tudomány Kapcsolatok a Magyar Tudományos Akadémiával – Stein-gyűjtemények a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtárában" [PhD thesis: Aurel Stein and Hungarian academia]
Morgan, Joyce; Walters, Conrad, Journeys on the Silk Road: a desert explorer, Buddha's secret library, and the unearthing of the world's oldest printed book, Picador Australia, 2011, ISBN9781405040419.
Pandita, S.N., Aurel Stein in Kashmir: Sanskrit of Mohand Marg. Om Publications, 2004. ISBN978-8186867839.
Wang, Helen (ed.). 2002. Sir Aurel Stein in The Times. London, Saffron Books. ISBN1-872843-29-8.
Wang, Helen (ed.). 2004. Sir Aurel Stein. Proceedings of the British Museum Study Day, 2002. British Museum Occasional Paper 142. ISBN0-86159-142-9.Archived 6 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Wang, Helen and Perkins, John (eds). 2008. Handbook to the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the UK. British Museum Research Publication 129 (updated and expanded edition of Handbook to the Stein Collections in the UK, 1999). ISBN978-086159-9776.
Wang Jiqing, Photographs in the British Library of Documents and Manuscripts from Sir Aurel Stein's Fourth Central Asian Expedition. Archived 15 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine
