Key Information

Photographer

Sir Charles Bell or Rabden Lepcha?

Collection

Sir Charles Bell

Date of Photo

April 16th 1921

Region

East Kyichu Valley Region > Dechen

Accession number

1998.285.67.1

Image Dimensions

120 x 163 mm

Ruined fort at Dechen, fourteen miles east of Lhasa. Settlement in foreground. Bottom right is the home of a 'wealthy peasant' where Bell and Kennedy stayed the night

Further Information

Photographic Process

Negative glass plate gelatin , Negative Half Plate

Date Acquired

Donated 1983

Donated by

St Antony's College, Oxford.

Copy difference

Lantern

Expedition

Sir Charles Bell's Mission to Lhasa 1920-21

Photo also owned by

Royal Central Asiatic Society

Previous Catologue Number

See H.62

Previous Pitt Rivers Museum Number

BL.H.62

Manual Catalogues -

Manual Catalogues - Bell's List of Illustrations entry: "[No. of chapter] IV. [Subject of Chapter] History up to 1900. [Subject of illustration] H62 (p) Old fort in ruins at Dechen, 14 miles east of Lhasa. At bottom on right is the peasant's house where we stayed, 16 April, 1921. [Remarks] L.29 [Lantern Slide 29]"

Contemporary Publication -

Contemporary Publication - Published in 'The Religion of Tibet', Bell, C. A., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931, facing p.134:" 'Ruined forts in commanding positions'."

Other Information - Related Images

Other Information - Related Images: In Bell's list of illustrations, the entries for H62 and H63 do not run consecutively, even though they are taken from an almost identical vantage point and seem clearly to have been taken consecutively. They have been re-ordered for the publication and/or lecture for which the list of illustrations has been compiled and the visual referents of the images have been re-coded as a result. 1998.285.67 incorporates both textually and visually a personal site of encounter in the 'peasant's house where we stayed', but this site has been cut from the scene textually in 1998.285.68, where the site becomes simply 'the village' [see notes for 1998.285.68]. It is not clear whether the peasant house has been cut from the scene visually as well, although 1998.285.67 includes an indistinct (domestic?) structure on the far right which may be the peasant house. This would locate Bell's named site of encounter in 1998.285.67 as being on the outer edges or exterior of the 'village' as defined visually in 1998.285.68. There is a lantern slide for H.62 (L.29) but not for H.63 [MS 14/5/2004]

For Citation use:
The Tibet Album. "Fort, village and monastery at Dechen" 05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum. <http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_1998.285.67.1.html>.

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Fort, village and monastery at Dechen