1900.6.22 A hidden “library” was found at Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. Sealed behind a wall ca. 1000 AD, it's packed with tens of thousands of manuscripts & paintings dating to as early as 4C AD. Most contents are Buddhist or in Chinese, but many of other religions & in non-Chinese:

L: 9C drawing of two Sogdian goddesses, possibly Den holding a dog figure & four-armed Nana
R: Earliest known Zoroastrian scripture (9C), written not in the sacred language of Avestan, but in Sogdian. It conveys one of the four greatest prayers: “Truth is the best good ... ”

1: 9C book of divination (Irk Bitig), the only complete text in old Turkic/runic script, used with a dice. Good omen–boy finds dung of an eagle; bad- camel fell into mud; very bad- a man with no titles, bad reputation
2: Drawing of a camel
3: Uyghur manuscript from a nearby cave

1. Akasagarbha Bodhisattva, Lord of Sky, with Tibetan inscriptions, likely mirroring a Tibetan ruler
2. Tibetan moxacautery medical chart
3. Buddhist guardian deities, inscribed with Khotanese, Eastern Iranian language written in Brahmi letters. These will save kids from plague

1. Fragment of a Christian painting featuring probably Jesus Christ, marked by a cross in his winged crown. It was for the local Church of the East (Nestorian)
2. Psalms written in Syriac, from a cave close to the library
3. Jewish penitential prayers (Selichot) written in Hebrew

Wang Yuanlu, a Daoist priest who made the find, sold most contents from the cave to Western explorers, after his pleas for protection of the library fell on deaf ears of officials. R: French scholar P.Pelliot, his expertise in Asian languages helped him pick out the most valuable

Last, a scene from Japanese movie “Dunhuang,” recreates the hasty construction of library cave as Tangut armies approached (Pelliot’s theory). But Rong Xinjiang argues, it was carefully planned after Karakhanid Sultan conquered the Buddhist Khotan Kingdom to the West of Dunhuang.

We have a stellar group of Dunhuang experts on twitter. Please follow them and check out their publications on Dunhuang: @stowhitfield @asianartlibrary @mickimmccoy @DNeilSchmid @BabelStone @junhu_hoa @xwen0113 @paulcopp, and the indispensable @idp_uk.

Manuscripts and paintings I posted are in the collections of three major institutes: the British Museum @britishmuseum, the British Library @britishlibrary, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France @laBnF