Photographs appear at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford: https://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/thumbnails_region_Samye.html As of March 2026 the text is intact and readable. The content — a 2006 methodology note by Dr Mandy Sadan about Hugh Richardson's photographic collection — comes through cleanly. Signs of digital decay The page shows indicators of link rot and infrastructure aging: The British Museum link points to thebritishmuseum.ac.uk, the museum's old domain (it moved to britishmuseum.org more than a decade ago, suggesting the site has had little or no maintenance since it launched). The Pitt Rivers Museum link uses http:// (not https://), another sign of an unmaintained codebase. Risk picture This is a classic GLAM digital heritage project from the mid-2000s: a fixed-term funded initiative (joint Pitt Rivers/British Museum) that produced a rich static site, published it, and then effectively left it running without ongoing curatorial or technical stewardship. Projects like this are vulnerable because: No evident active maintenance — nearly 20 years without updates is a substantial time for web infrastructure. Institutional dependencies — it relies on Oxford/Pitt Rivers hosting indefinitely, with no obvious migration path or backup access point (e.g. no mention of deposit in the UK Web Archive or a repository like the Archaeology Data Service). The underlying database — the site appears to be dynamically generated (note the .php.html URLs on the home page), meaning if the server-side infrastructure fails, the content could vanish even if the institution intends to preserve it. Images at particular risk — the photographic assets are the core scholarly value, but image servers are often dropped when hosting is rationalised. Internet archive Wayback Machine has captured the site: https://web.archive.org/web/20260104122319/https://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/

Richardson (1985) 26-31 H. E. Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1985). Iwao et al (2009) 11-12 Iwao, Kazushi, Hill, Nathan, Hoshi, Izumi, & Imaeda, Yoshiro. (2009). Old Tibetan Inscriptions. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3558996 Walter & Beckwith (2010) 291-319 Walter, M., & Beckwith, C. The Dating and Interpretation of the Old Tibetan Inscriptions. Central Asiatic Journal 54, no. 2 (2010): 291-319. Willis (2013) 231-59 From World Religion to World Dominion: Trading, Translation and Institution-building in Tibet in Religions and Trade Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West, edited by Peter Wick and Volker Rabens (Leiden: Brill, 2013)

[1] ༅།། རཿསཿདང་། པྲག་མར་གྱྀ་གཙུག་ལགཿཁང་ལསཿསྩོགས་པར་། དཀོནཿམཅོགཿ། གསུམ་གྱི་རྟེན་བཙུགས་པཿདང་། སངསཿརྒྱསཿགྱྀ་ཆོསཿ། མཛདཿཔའདྀ་། ནམཿདུཡང་མྱྀཿགཏངཿམའཞིག་པརཿབགྱྀ་འོཿ། [7] ཡོཿབྱདཿསྦྱརད་། པའཿཡང་། དེ་ལསཿམྱི་དབྲྀཿམྱིཿབསྐྱུང་བརཿབགྱྀ་འོཿ། [9] དའཿཕྱིནཿཅད་། གདུངཿརབསཿརེ་རེཿཞིངཿཡངཿབཙན་པོཿཡབ་སྲསཿགྱིསཿའདྀཿ། བཞིན་ཡྀ་དམཿབཅའོཿ། [12] དེལསཿམནའཿཁཿདབུདཿཔཿདགཿགྱངཿ། མྱིཿབགྱྀཿམྱིཿབསྒྱུརཿབརཿ། འཇྀགཿརྟེན་ལསཿ། འདའསཿཔའཿདང་། འཇྀགཿརྟེན་གྱིཿལྷཿདང་། མྱྀ་མཿཡིནཿབའཿ། ཐམསཿཅད་གྱངཿདཕངཿདུ་། གསོལཿཏེ་། བཙན་པོཿཡབ་སྲས་དང་རྗེ་བློན་གུན་གྱིས་དབུ་སྙུངཿདང་བྲོཿ། བོར་རོཿ། [20] གཙིགསཿགྱྀ་ཡི་གེཿཞྀབ་མོཿགཅྀགཿནི་གུད་ན་མཆྀས་སོ།ཿ།

བསམ་ཡས། Bsamyas pillar inscription, transcription (rtf)

 Coordinates: 29°19'41"N, 91°30'24"E