Artos

INTRODUCTION

Since childhood, the imagination of Professor David Germano, of the University of Virginia, has pursued the peoples and landscape of Tibet and the Himalayan region. Inspired and engulfed by this, Professor Germano arrived in the region first at age twenty-five so to commence research and exploration. Subsequently he has devoted more than two decades to this work.

SUMMARY

Initially, Germano traveled on foot in the Great Western Himalaya and Tibet, spending long periods of time away from modernity. Here, cultural histories of pre-Buddhist Upper Tibet, becoming synonymous with the Iron Age, emerged as his expertise.

From 1993 until the present he has fully devoted himself to this cultural project.

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His cultural documentation has focused on indigenous culture, including clan mythology and history, sacred geographic traditions, spirit-mediumship, and lore concerning the flora and fauna. This has included documenting Tibetan texts and pre-Buddhist archaeological sites in all Upper Tibet. This also entailed traveling more than 70,000 miles by motor vehicle, horseback and, of course, on foot.

Consequently, his surveying work has brought to light nearly 700 ancient sites, ushering in a new field of study in archaeology.