TheInternational Dunhuang Project (IDP) group at the British Library are working on a program to improve and support Wikipedia articles related to Central Asian history and archaeology in general, as well as on the specific sites and artefacts covered by the IDP.

The IDP hosted a one-day workshop at the University of Nottingham on Friday 8th March. The event was run by Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing), and involved members of the IDP group at the British Library as well as student groups from both Nottingham and Birmingham.

It was hosted in the GIS Graduate Computer Laboratory in the Clive Granger Building, from 11am-5pm. An overview of existing online Silk Road resources available through IDP and other sites were followed by a short introduction to Wikipedia, its community and its background - taking place at 11am, 1pm, 3pm as needed. They were followed by a hands-on session to give experience using the site and working with other editors.

The IDP group at the British Library ran a multi-day, multi-language, editing programme from 23rd to 26th October 2012 focused on the broad theme of Central Asian history and archaeology. As well as contributions from IDP staff and interested Wikipedians, we had participation from several external academics and three groups of students.

During the event, we overhauled and reorganised coverage of archaeological sites in the Taklamakan, building up an overall list of sites, and created/rewrote several articles on individual figures linked to the past expeditions.

New: read ourreport on the sessions!

The scope of this project covers a wide range of articles, from broad overview topics down to narrow articles on a single site or person.

The project's focus includes the broad topic of theSilk Road as well as, potentially, overview articles such asArchaeology in China orArchaeology in Tibet.

The main article here is the extensiveList of archaeological sites of the Taklamakan and Lop Desert, which lists every major site in the Tarim Basin. The main sites are nearKhotan andDunhuang, and include major sites such as theMogao Caves, theAstana Cemetery, or theBezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves.

Individual articles created as part of the project include sites such asFarhad-beg-yailaki andMazar Tagh.

The project is built around theDunhuang Manuscripts, which include a number of unique artefacts such as theDiamond Sutra (the earliest known printed book), theDunhuang Go Manual (the earliest book on the game of Go), or theDunhuang Star Chart (the oldest complete star atlas).

The collection also covers prominent works such as theOld Tibetan Chronicle and theTibetan Annals.

The collection covers material in a wide range of languages and scripts, ranging from the well-documentedSanskrit andClassical Tibetan to less well-known languages such asSaka (Khotanese) orTangut.

A full list of online IDP resources ishere, and a collection of uploaded files on Commons ishere. If you think the group can provide any images from their collections to help with articles, please do ask - contactAndrew Gray for details.