Between 1909 and 1914, Sergei F. Oldenberg, the former head of the archaeology department of the Russian Institute of Oriental Studies and scholar of Buddhism and folk studies, went twice to Sinkiang and Kansu and took away many treasures. Among these were more than 300 manuscripts and 18,000 fragments discovered at Tunhuang.
一九○九到一九一四年間，曾任蘇聯東方學院院長的考古、佛學與民俗學家鄂登堡，兩度到新疆和甘肅，帶走許多文物，其中包括在敦煌發現的三百多卷手抄本和一萬八千多份抄本碎片。