Oldal 416 [416]
Lusos BELKA
[The Art of Old Mongolia]. It is certainly noteworthy that the Czechoslovak edition
contained at least 40 less photographs than the English and German editions and that
the text also differs. In the English and German editions there are far more photographs
documenting religious life in Mongolia as it was at the time; there are photographs of
the consecration of the large stupa at Gandan Monastery which took place on July 9,
1958: Jisl and his colleagues were the only foreign guests at the ceremony.
The third and last trip took place from September 9, 1963 to October 3, 1963 and
in contrast to the others had a different purpose:
“The goal of the expedition was, in the context of creating an inventory of the monu¬
ments of the Mongolian People’s Republic, to discover as yet unknown archaeologi¬
cal sites, to register them, document them, and to verify sites previously known of
from publications or by word-of-mouth. The goal of the journey was the northern part
of Khentii Aimag (province), mainly the Onon River basin. We covered a distance
of 2638 kilometers.’””!
At the beginning of this trip Lumir Jis] surveyed the area of the Kiiltegin monument for
the last time in order to document the state of this archaeological site. He then travelled
with the Mongolian archaeologist Namsrain Ser-Odjaw, whom he knew from his first
expedition, and with whom he had worked on the excavations during the second trip:
Ser-Odjaw was the director of the Mongolian part of the expedition. So after five years,
Jis] once again was able to return to Mongolia, this time to examine north-eastern Mon¬
golia. It can be said that Jisl spent more time with Ser-Odjaw than with any of the other
Mongolian participants. They set off together on their expedition, which one would
certainly wish to characterize as nomadic in this case, as it truly differed from the last,
‘classically’ archaeological expedition of 1958. From September 9" to September 30"
1963, they covered more than 2500 km, travelling in the Soviet-manufactured terrain
vehicle GAZ 69 with the driver from the Academy of Sciences — himself a former
lama — Lhanaajav. The expedition therefore had the goal of archaeologically mapping
out a huge amount of territory and, by means of surface collections, to gather small
artefacts, photograph petroglyphs, deer stones, and the like.
The true focus of their attention, however, which went unmentioned in their plans
and their work task sheets, was what is referred to today as religious field studies. In
Jisl’s case, they were creating a ‘passive’ documentation of the ruins and remains of
the sacred architecture of Buddhism: monasteries, temples, ovoo offering places, as
20 Jisl, Lumir: Mongolian Journey. Batchworth Press and Artia, London — Praha 1960, p. 27, 144 ill.; Jisl,
Lumir: Mongolei. Kunst und Tradition. Artia, Praha 1960, p. 30, 144 ill.; Jisl, Lumir: Umeni stareho
Mongolska, Statni nakladatelstvi krasné literatury a uméni, Praha 1961, p. 35, 104 ill.
Jisl, Lumir: Zprava o Ceskoslovensko-mongolske archeologicke expedici v Mongolske lidove republice
vroce 1963 [Report of the Czechoslovak-Mongolian archaeological expedition in Mongolian People’s
Republic in 1963]. Unpublished and undated typescript in Czech, Prague 1963, p. 1.
414