Collector of Murals: Albert von Le Coq
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It was the German team which followed Stein in Central Asia. Carrying out their research mainly along the Northern Route of the Silk Road in the vicinity of at Kucha and Turfan, Albert von Le Coq (Portrait of Le Coq(9)) who was the main character in the play of events.
Le Coq had started his archaeological career as an unpaid researcher at the Berlin Ethnological Museum, and was not even allowed to participate in the first German expedition (1902-03). But then something unexpected happened which would change the course of events.
The leader of the German team, Albert Grünwedelhead of the Indian department of the Berlin Ethnological Museum) became ill and this was followed by the death of another member of the team,George Huth, which resulted in Le Coq’s exceptional promotion for the second expedition (1904-05).
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Leading the team, Le Coq headed with Theodore Bartus to the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cavesand found murals in extraordinary well-preserved condition.
The team removed most of the murals they found there. They also collected a large number of murals(10) from the Kizil Grottoes as well.
The decision to remove the murals was made by Le Coq, however it was Bartus, who was formally a sailor, who skillfully carried out the task of cutting the murals right off the walls of the grottoes to be packed up and sent back to Berlin.
The paintings were then housed in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum where they received much acclaim.
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Grünwedel, however, who was his superior and was supposed to lead this second expedition, was against Le Coq’s decision from an academic point of view.
Grünwedel believed that murals should be studied in situ, as part of the archaeological site in its entirity, and so to remove the murals—even in the aim of preserving them at a different site-- was equivalent ato looting.
His opinion was to leave the originals where they were and produce replicas for exhibitions at museums. He said that research that included accurate drawings(11), measurements(12), and scientific observations were absolutely needed to meet this purpose as well.
Stein and Pelliot, who later visited the site, also had second thoughts about Le Coq's research. On the other hand, it is also true that the murals that Le Coq brought back have become important materials for research.
The deluxe catalogue that he published in midst of the economic hard times and post-War inflation after the First World War has had an outstanding academic significance . Le Coq also contributed in the cataloguing and exhibiting of the collections at Berlin.
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