International Dunhuang Project

International Dunhuang Project
Location	Directorate at the British Library, London, England
Established	1994
Branches	Centres at Beijing, Berlin, Dunhuang, Kyoto, Paris, St Petersburg, and Seoul
Collection
Size	over 140,000 catalogue entries over 530,000 images
Other information
Website	idp.bl.uk

The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese city of Dunhuang and various other archaeological sites at the eastern end of the Silk Road. The project was established by the British Library in 1994,^[1] and now includes twenty-two institutions in twelve countries. As of 18 February 2021^[update] the online IDP database comprised 143,290 catalogue entries and 538,821 images.^[2] Most of the manuscripts in the IDP database are texts written in Chinese, but more than fifteen different scripts and languages are represented,^[3] including Brahmi, Kharosthi, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Tangut, Tibetan, Tocharian and Old Uyghur.^[2]

Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, has noted that there are many advantages of the IDP providing high resolution digital images of Dunhuang manuscripts online for access to all. Whereas in years gone by scholars often needed to travel long distances to access the original manuscripts, or could only access them by means of low quality reproductions, now anyone can access images from the convenience of their computer, wherever they are in the world. This not only makes research into these manuscripts easier, but helps in their conservation as there is far less need for them to be handled in person. Moreover, the high quality images provided by the IDP often show up details that would be difficult to see with the human eye.^[4]