Turfan Manuscripts in the State Hermitage - a Rediscovery

He article presents the results of a close cooperation of colleagues from the State Hermitage and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts). 23 fragments of manuscripts and block prints in five different languages (Chinese, Old Uighur, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Syriac) are described in detail. Almost all of them could be identified. They stem from the four German Turfan expeditions (1902- 1914) and were housed in the Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin) for exhibition reasons, i.e. they belong to the most important findings of these expeditions. Nevertheless some of these fragments have never been published before. For a long time it was thought that they belong to the losses during World War II. Now they have been re-discovered in the depot of the State Hermitage. In the appendix an Old Uighur fragment of the Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruk is edited. It belongs to the re-discovered texts and was known up-to-now only from some quotations in an early edition.

State Hermitage, German Turfan expeditions, Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin), manuscript, block print, scroll, folded book, amulet, illumination, Chinese, Old Uighur, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Syriac, Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruk