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Please click here for the IDP website.
IDP Background Following extensive excavations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of manuscripts, paintings, textiles and other artefacts dating from 100 BC - AD 1200 were found in the Library Cave at Dunhuang and at numerous other ancient Silk Road cities, temples and tombs in the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. These constitute a fragile but very rich source of information about religion, art, history, politics, trade, science, culture and social life on the Eastern Silk Road around the first millennium AD. The manuscripts are written in over twenty different languages and scripts, a majority in Chinese, but also thousands in Tibetan as well as others in Sanskrit, Khotanese, Tangut, Uighur and other languages, attesting to the cultural richness of the Silk Road. The murals and portable paintings, on silk, hemp and paper, are mainly Buddhist, but other religions and themes are depicted. Numerous artefacts, mostly Buddhist or everyday items, and textiles were also uncovered.Following these discoveries, the material was dispersed to museum and library collections worldwide, making access difficult. Moreover, the sheer quantity of items in the collections strained the resources of the holding institutions, resulting in most collections not being fully conserved, catalogued or published. History In October 1993, conservators and curators from all collections holding relevant material met to address these problems and, as a result of their discussions, established The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) in early 1994 'to promote the study and preservation of the archaeological legacy of the Eastern Silk Road through international cooperation.' Its directorate is based at the British Library. A newsletter stating its aims was published soon after.Much of IDP's early work focused on conservation and cataloguing, both of which remain core activities. These have been supplemented in the past few years with digitisation, education and research. IDP started digitising the manuscripts in 1997 with the aim of bringing together the collections in virtual space. Its web site went online in October 1998 and allows free access to the IDP Database with high-quality images of the manuscripts and other material, with cataloguing and contextual information. In this way, Silk Road material is becoming increasingly available to academic and general users alike.A history of the first ten years of IDP is given in IDP News 24.
Achievements- IDP is the largest and most successful project of its kind, containing information on more than 50,000 paintings, artefacts, textiles, manuscripts, historical photographs and maps as well as cataloguing and contextual information. More data is added to the site every day. All the data and images are freely accessible to all. Search here.
- The website receives more than 50,000 hits a day - over 18 million in 2005 alone. It has been widely praised as an 'outstanding contribution to scholarship' and an 'essential scholarly resource'.
- IDP has local centres in London, Beijing, St Petersburg, Kyoto, and Berlin training local staff to use the latest digitisation and computer equipment and sharing conservation and scientific advances among all.
- IDP resources were an essential part of the British Library's 2004 exhibition: 'The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith', which explored cultural diversity and interaction on the Silk Road. Exhibits were also borrowed from China, Japan, and Europe. The exhibition attracted over 150,000 visitors as well as over 35,000 visitors to the accompanying online exhibition.
- IDP has held seven international conservation conferences, hosted by its members, to discuss the best methods of conservation of the materials, and has published the proceedings of several of these. See details here.
Collaborating MembersThe following institutions are involved in IDP's work, as founder members or collaborating institutions: - The British Library, London
- The British Museum, London
- The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
- The National Library of China, Beijing
- The Dunhuang Academy, Dunhuang
- The Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg
- The National Museum, New Delhi
- Ryukoku University, Kyoto
- State Library, Berlin
- Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
- Musée Guimet, Paris
- The National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm
- The Sven Hedin Foundation, Stockholm
- The Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC
- University of California at Los Angeles
- University of California at Berkeley
- Pierpont Morgan Library, New York
IDP CentresIDP LondonIDP London was established in 1994 at the British Library as the directorate for IDP. It is part of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (APAC). The Director, Project Managers and administrative and technical staff oversee the work of IDP, the design, maintenance and upgrading of the database and web sites, and overall quality control. The directorate maintains the mailing list and produces a twice-yearly newsletter in print and electronic form. It also carries out research and educational projects and prepares resources for the web site.IDP London also coordinates the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Central Asian manuscripts in the British Library collections in liaison with British Library conservators and curators, and scholars worldwide. It has its own digitisation studio with six staff, three photographers and three imaging assistants, using digital backs on high-format cameras.IDP London also hosts the images and metadata of other collaborating institutions which do not have their own IDP website. IDP BeijingIDP Beijing was established in 2001 at the National Library of China (NLC) to coordinate the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Central Asian collections in China in liaison with NLC conservators and curators and Chinese scholars. It is part of the Rare Books and Manuscript Section. It has a Research and Project Head, inputting staff and a digitisation studio, currently with one photographer/imaging assistant. Funds are currently being sought to expand the studio. It maintains the Chinese version of the website. IDP St PetersburgIDP St Petersburg was established in 2004 at the Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS), St Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences to coordinate the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Central Asian collections in St Petersburg in liaison with IOS conservators and curators and Russian scholars. It has a Research and Project Head, inputting staff and a digitisation studio with two staff, a photographer and imaging assistant. It maintains the Russian version of the website. IDP KyotoIDP Kyoto was established in 2004 at Ryukoku University, Kyoto to coordinate the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Central Asian collections in Japan in liaison with University conservators and curators and Japanese scholars. It has a digitisation studio with one photographer/imaging assistant. It maintains the Japanese version of the website. IDP BerlinIDP Berlin was established in 2005 at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Staatsbibliothek to coordinate the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Central Asian collections in Berlin in liaison with local conservators and curators and German scholars. It has an imaging assistant and inputter. It maintains the German version of the website. The FutureThe emphasis for the next five years is to continue IDP's core activities of conserving, cataloguing, digitising and researching the manuscripts and artefacts and utilise them to build up greater awareness of Central Asian history and culture worldwide. By the end of the period, we aim to have catalogued, digitised, and made 80% of the collections freely available online for anyone to use. We hope to build further centres in India, France and the US. We also aim to develop a greatly enhanced education and outreach programme to bring this unique resource to schoolchildren and scholars worldwide. If you would like to help IDP achieve these aims please give us your support. To be kept informed of our progress sign up to receive our newsletter. Contact UsClick here to contact IDP.
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