Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
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Museum of Asian Art
The Museum of Asian Art and its various collections belie a long and eventful history. The museum dates back to the Museum für Völkerkunde, now the Ethnological Museum, founded in 1873, and its East Asian and Indian departments, each of which were subsequently to develop into their own respective museums: The Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst (Museum for East Asian Art, 1906) and the Museum für Indische Kunst (Museum for Indian Art, 1963).
The Museum for East Asian Art and the Museum for Indian Art were combined in December 2006 and now jointly fall under the name of the Museum of Asian Art.
Along with its many highlights, the museum is particularly well known for its world famous Turfan Collection, which takes its name from the Royal Prussian Turfan expeditions that took place from 1902 to 1914 along the northern Silk Road, in today's Xinjiang region of the People's Republic of China. The wall paintings, sculptures and pictures on fabric and paper
found there mostly originate from Buddhist religious buildings from between the 3rd and 13th centuries.
Find out more about the Turfan Collection's splendid art treasures, as well as the myth surrounding the Silk Road, the various expeditions of the Berlin scientists and the museum's current plans: The Turfan Expeditions
