The Library Cave

In 1900, a Daoist priest named Wang Yuanlu accidentally discovered a hidden chamber in the northern wall of the passageway in Cave 16 of the Mogao Caves, known as the Library Cave (Cave 17). This cave preserved over 70,000 pieces of ancient literature, encompassing a wide range of content, with government and private documents and letters being most historically significant. The cave contains a wealth of manuscripts in various languages, including ancient Tibetan, Uighur, Khotanese, Sogdian, and Sanskrit, greatly enriching the historical records of ethnic minority's life as well as Sino-foreign exchanges between the central Chinese regime and the Western Regions, and beyond. Additionally, the Library Cave preserved delicate art such as silk paintings, linen paintings, paper artworks, textiles, and embroidery—items that seldom survive. These artifacts were lucky enough to have been exceptionally well preserved in the dry, enclosed environment here, and they hold immeasurable value.

The discoveries in the Library Cave are unparalleled in terms of time, content, quantity, and value. However, due to China's decline at the time of their discovery, these cultural relics and documents were scattered multiple times and are now stored in various parts of the world, leading to the emergence of a global academic discipline known as Dunhuang Studies. Chinese scholars began to focus on the excavated materials from the cave in 1909, making significant academic progress and transforming China's Dunhuang Studies from a "history of academic sorrow" into a narrative of academic self-improvement.

敦煌藏經洞

1900年，一個名叫王圓箓的道士，意外發現了莫高窟第16窟甬道北壁隱藏的密室，即莫高窟第17窟——藏經洞。藏經洞內保存了7萬余件古代文獻，這些文獻內容廣泛，官私文書是其中最具史料價值的部分，還有大量古藏文、回鶻文、于闐文、粟特文、梵文等各種文字寫成的文獻材料，極大地豐富了少數民族生活和中外交流的歷史記錄。同時，藏經洞出土的絹畫、麻布畫、紙畫、絲織品、刺繡等難以留存的藝術品，在敦煌這樣干燥密閉的環境下非常完好地保存下來，有著無法估量的價值。

藏經洞內的發現無論從時間、內容、數量、價值等各方面均堪稱獨一無二。但由于被發現時中國正值國力衰落，這批文獻文物經多次流散，現在分藏于世界各地，并引發了一門世界性的顯學——敦煌學。中國學者從1909年開始關注藏經洞的出土資料，在學術研究上奮起直追，使中國的敦煌學從“學術傷心史”轉變成“學術自強史”。