Inscribed presentation copy. Inscribed by Mark Aurel Stein to John Marshall (1876-1958), Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928. John Marshall's excavations in the Punjab and Sindh would uncover the Indus Valley Civilisations, which totally reshaped our understanding of Indian Antiquity and the sophistication of the cultures that existed before the classical age. The inscription in this work is dated 1912, just a year before he would break ground at Taxila: one of the great cities on the Indus River and once capital of the Gandhara civilisation. Marshall was also the first to employ native Indians as archaeologists and supervisors, instead of just being hired labour, and was sympathetic to desires for Indian self-determination.

Popular account of Stein's second venture to Central Asia between 1906 and 1909. From Khotan he surveyed eastwards to Loulan, and in 1907 he reached Tunhwang, where he visited and surveyed the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas for the first time. It was there that he discovered a printed copy of the Diamond Sutra which is the world's oldest printed text, dating to AD 868.

First edition, inscribed presentation copy; 2 vols, 8vo; vol. I inscribed on publisher's blank, 3 maps, 13 panoramas, & 343 photographic illustrations, touch of spotting to half titles; rebound in calf backed cloth boards, a very good set; xxxviii, 546, 2(ads); xxi, 517, 2 (ads) pp.

Yakushi S716.