Yusupova T.I. P.K. Kozlov’s Mongolia and Sichuan Expedition (1907-1909): the Discovery of Khara-Khoto // Russian Expeditions to Central Asia at the Turn of the 20th Century / Collected articles. Edited by I.F. Popova. St Petersburg, Slavia Publishers, 2008. P. 112-129.
Destiny can play strange games with archaeological discoveries. One can spend half his life studying a scientific problem or looking for traces of vanished civilizations, but all the efforts prove futile: the long and arduous
labours remain unrewarded, whereas somebody else makes an
unexpected discovery without ever thinking of it — while
addressing entirely different tasks. This was the case with
P.K. Kozlov, who made an outstanding contribution to archaeology
without being a qualified archaeologist. The traveller and
geographer gained world renown for his excavations carried out
in 1908—09 in Khara-Khoto buried in the Gobi sands, and in
1924—25 in the Hun (xiongnu) burials in the Noyon Uul
Mountains in Mongolia. Was it a sheer chance or ‘planned’
luck? Let us try to sort this out...
The 3rd International Academic Conference “The Written Heritage of the Orient” dedicated to the 140th anniversary of B.Ya. Vladimirtsov (1884–1931) will take place at the IOM RAS on April 22–24. The conference program is now available.
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