Abstract
IT is announced that the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society has awarded the gold medal of the Society “in recognition of distinguished services in Oriental Research” to Sir Aurel Stein, the well-known traveller and archæologist. For more than thirty years Sir Aurel Stein has been engaged in travel and exploration in Central Asia, with the authority and under the direction of H.M. Indian Government. His investigations among the sand-buried cities of Eastern Turkestan and Western China, where he shares with Sven Hedin the honour of pioneer exploration, have recovered for archæological and historical science a vast treasure of literary and official records, as well as of objects which reveal the art and culture of the early peoples of the Tarim basin. The remarkable achievements of their art in two directions in particular are demonstrated in two special publications dealing with this material—“Ancient Figured Silks Excavated … at Ruined Sites of Central Asia” (1920) and “Ancient Buddhist Paintings from the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas on the Westernmost Border of China” (1921). The results achieved in the journeys carried out by Sir Aurel Stein under the order of H.M. Indian Government have been described in a number of carefully prepared and scholarly publications, of which the best known are “Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan” (1907), “Explorations in Central Asia” (1906–8), “Ruins of Desert Cathay” (1912), and “Serindia” (1921), which for a travel book achieved the almost unique distinction of becoming a ‘collector's book’ saleable at a high premium within a short time of publication. In another field, “On Alexander's Track to the Indus” (1929) deals with exploration and topographical research in the lands of the Indian north-west frontier. Sir Aurel Stein received the honour of K.C.I.E. in 1912.
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Honour for Sir Aurel Stein. Nature 129, 860 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129860b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129860b0