Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878 - October 26, 1945) was a French sinologist and explorer of Central Asia. A pupil of Sylvain Levi , Pelliot conducted only one archaeological expedition into Central Asia.

Pelliot worked at Ecole Françise d'Extrême Orient in Hanoi, from where he was dispatched in 1900 to Peking to search for Chinese books for the Ecole's library. While there, he was caught up in the Boxer Rebellion and trapped in the siege of foreign legations. Pelliot made two forays into enemy territory during the siege - one to capture an enemy standard and another to obtain fresh fruit for those under siege. For his bravery, he received the Légion d'honneur. At age 22, Paul Pelliot returned to Hanoi, where he was made a Professor of Chinese at the Ecole.

The Expedition

Pelliot's expedition left Paris on June 17, 1906. His 3-man team included Dr. Louis Vaillant , an Army medical officer, and Charles Nouette , a photographer. The three traveled to Chinese Turkestan by rail through Moscow and Tashkent. The team arrived in Kashgar at the end of August, staying with the Russian consul-general (the successor to Nikolai Petrovsky). Pelliot amazed the local Chinese officials with his fluent Chinese (only one of the 13 languages he spoke). His efforts were to pay off shortly, when his team began obtaining supplies (like a yurt) that were previously considered unobtainable.

His first stop after leaving Kashgar was first stop was Tumchuq . From there, he proceeded to Kucha, where he found documents in the lost language of Kuchean. These documents were later translated by Sylvain Levi, Pelliot's former teacher. After Kucha, Pelliot went to Urumchi, where they encountered Duke Lan , whose brother had led the Boxer Rebellion. Duke Lan was in permanent exile in Urumchi. Pelliot's final stop on his expedition was the famed Tun-huang.

At Tun-huang, Pelliot managed to gain access to Abbot Wang's secret chamber, which contained a massive hoard of ancient manuscripts already observed by Sir Aurel Stein. Like the yurt in Kashgar, it is believed that Pelliot's abilities with the Chinese language played an important role here. After 3 weeks of analyzing the manuscripts, often at a rate of one thousand a day, Pelliot convinced Wang to sell him a selection of the most important ones. Wang, who was interested in continuing the refurbishment of his monastery, agreed to the price of 500 taels ( £ 90).

The Return and Later Years

Pelliot returned to Paris on October 24, 1909, to a vicious smear campaign mounted against himself, Edouard Chavannes (a fellow sinologist) and the staff of the Ecole. Pelliot was accused of wasting public money and returning with forged manuscripts. This campaign came to a head with a December 1910 article in La Revue Indigène by M. Fernand Farjenel. These charges were not proved false until Sir Aurel Stein's book, Ruins of Desert Cathay , appeared in 1912. In his book, Stein made it clear that he had left manuscripts behind in Tun-huang. Stein's book vindicated Pelliot and silenced Pelliot's critics.

Pelliot later served as French military attach&eacute in Peking during World War I. He died of cancer in 1945. Upon his death, it was said that "Without him, sinology is left like an orphan."

The Musée Guimet in Paris has a gallery named after him.

Reference

• Hopkirk, Peter (1980). Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-435-8.