敦煌藏经洞
1900年，一个名叫王圆箓的道士，意外发现了莫高窟第16窟甬道北壁隐藏的密室，即莫高窟第17窟——藏经洞。藏经洞内保存了7万余件古代文献，这些文献内容广泛，官私文书是其中最具史料价值的部分，还有大量古藏文、回鹘文、于阗文、粟特文、梵文等各种文字写成的文献材料，极大地丰富了少数民族生活和中外交流的历史记录。同时，藏经洞出土的绢画、麻布画、纸画、丝织品、刺绣等难以留存的艺术品，在敦煌这样干燥密闭的环境下非常完好地保存下来，有着无法估量的价值。
藏经洞内的发现无论从时间、内容、数量、价值等各方面均堪称独一无二。但由于被发现时中国正值国力衰落，这批文献文物经多次流散，现在分藏于世界各地，并引发了一门世界性的显学——敦煌学。中国学者从1909年开始关注藏经洞的出土资料，在学术研究上奋起直追，使中国的敦煌学从“学术伤心史”转变成“学术自强史”。
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.
