About the Book

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the dispersal of Chinese cultural relics from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Following the Opium Wars, there was a surge of Western interest in uncovering treasures in China, leading to the removal of countless artifacts by foreign explorers and antique dealers. These national treasures were lost overseas, making their return to China nearly impossible.

Beginning with the exploits of China’s Western explorers, the book unfolds in eleven chapters, detailing the adventures of figures like Marc Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Ōtani Kōzui, and others in China, chronicling how the numerous precious cultural relics were taken away from the country and their stories afterward in foreign lands.

With meticulously researched historical details, this book serves as both a lament and a commemoration of a century of Chinese cultural relics dispersed worldwide.

About the Author

Chang Qing has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Department of Archaeology at Peking University and a PhD in Chinese Art History from the University of Kansas, specializing in Chinese grotto temple art. He has worked at the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Institute of Buddhist Culture of China. After 2000, he served as a postdoctoral lecturer and visiting professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he taught Asian and Chinese art history and worked as a research curator at the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas. Since 2018, he has been a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Art, Sichuan University. He has published 12 monographs and over 100 research papers in Chinese and English.

Huang Shan has a passion for art, history, and ancient languages. She graduated from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, with a master’s degree in 2021. Due to her interest in ancient artifacts and geopolitics, she is pursuing a PhD in history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her main research focuses on the dissemination and circulation of artifacts in ancient Central Asian cultures.

• Explore the untold story of China’s lost treasures
• Discover the exploits of Western explorers who took China’s cultural relics
• A compelling account of a century-long cultural tragedy and its impact