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Paul
Pelliet
The
second person aiming at the relics of Dunhuang is a French man,
Paul Pelliot.
He
was only twenty-seven when he was chosen to lead a three-man expedition
to northwest China. He arrived at Dunhuang in March 1908 and, as
a Sinologist, he was able to speak and read Chinese and select carefully
from among the many manuscripts in Cave 17 - he claimed to have
surveyed up to one thousand pieces a day.
He
bought at low price large quantities of the precious documents unearthed
from the Library Cave, and the silk paintings and silk fabrics left
by Stein. All these relics numbering more than 10,000 pieces, looted
by Palliot from Dunhuang, are now being kept in the museums of France.
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