In 1900 Wang Yuanlu, a Daoist priest who had taken on the care of the Buddhist cave temples at Mogao near Dunhuang on the Silk Road in north-western China, discovered behind a wall painting a sealed chamber that contained about 50,000 manuscripts, paintings and printed texts from the fourth to the early eleventh century. They included the Diamond Sutra of 868, in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Sogdian and other languages. The chamber was sealed around 1000. Aurel Stein in 1907 and Paul Pelliot in 1908 bought thousands of items, now in London, Paris and elsewhere. The find transformed the study of medieval Central Asia and of Buddhism.
Before and after
- 1900Founding of RCD Espanyol de Barcelona
- c. 1900sRise of modernism
- 1900Quantum mechanics
- 1900Sponge divers find the Antikythera wreck
- 1900The Library Cave of Dunhuang is discovered
- 1900Mendel's laws are rediscovered
- 19001900 becomes the warmest year on record
- 9 January 1900Founding of SS Lazio
- from 23 January 1900 to 24 January 1900Battle of Spion Kop
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The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.