Paul Pelliot
French sinologist and linguist Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 1878, Paris-1945) came across the oldest written account on Angkor, The Customs of Cambodia by Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan, while he was researching the travelogues of famous explorer Marco Polo and the collection of Dunhuang manuscripts. He authored the most reliable French translation of Zhou’s journal in 1902.
From his 1905 mission to Chinese Turkestan, he brought back some 10,000 manuscripts in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Uigur, and from Beijing some 30,000 books donated to the Paris Bibliothèque nationale.
Pelliot became otherwise a reference in Chinese, Mongolian, Persian, Uigur and Central Asian studies, holding the Chair of the Languages, History, and Archaeology of Central Asia which the Collège de France established especially for him.
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