International Dunhuang Project
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| Established | 1994 |
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| Location | Directorate at the British Library, London, England |
| Branches | Centres at Beijing, Berlin, Dunhuang, Kyoto, Paris, St Petersburg, and Seoul |
| Collection | |
| Size | over 135,000 catalogue entries over 450,000 images |
| Other information | |
| Director | Susan Whitfield |
| 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 Dunhuang and various other archaeological sites at the eastern end of the Silk Road. The project was established by the British Library in 1994, and now includes twenty-two institutions in twelve countries. As of 1 March 2016[update] the online IDP database comprised 137,812 catalogue entries and 483,721 images. Most of the manuscripts in the IDP database are texts written in Chinese, but more than fifteen different scripts and languages are represented, including Brahmi, Kharosthi, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Tangut, Tibetan, and Old Uyghur.
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.
The main activities of the IDP are the conserving, cataloguing, and digitising of manuscripts, woodblock prints, paintings, photographs and other artefacts in the collections material from Dunhuang and other Eastern Silk Road sites held by participating institutions. Digitised images of the items in the IDP database are made available to the public on the IDP website. The digital images are intended to be at least as legible as the original manuscripts, and allow scholars to access the material from anywhere in the world without causing any more damage to the fragile items themselves.
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