ETHAS 053944

Tibet livre xylo. "Chants de Milarepa"

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053944
Woodblock edition of the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa
Tibet
Early 20th century
Paper, wood
Gift of Ella Maillart in 1994
A book of poems by the Buddhist mystic Milarepa (11th century). The great traveller Ella Maillart (1903-1997) said she traded her sleeping bag for this book with a lama who used to go to Tibet at night to fetch books for Heinrich Harrer (1912-2006), the famous Austrian mountaineer and collector.

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Writing

Asia has yielded the earliest signs of writing, through which man managed to materialise his discourse and so – by definition – emerge from Prehistory. Writing is also a decisive factor in identity and social cohesion. One of the very first writing systems is cuneiform, which appeared in Mesopotamia (Iraq) about 3500 BC.

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