General description of the collections

The documents were collected during research missions or private trips, from the 1950s onwards, in various territories of the Himalayan world (Nepal, India, Bhutan, China, Pakistan), particularly in regions long closed to foreigners, such as Ladakh (1974) or Tibet (1980).

The collections managed by Memories of the Himalaya represent nearly 100,000 photographs (negatives, slides and prints) and hundreds of field notebooks covering a wide range of themes and fields of research: ecology, environment, geology, anthropology, religious practices, history of art and technology, architecture, etc.

Some of the documents collected by certain producers (sound or video recordings, samples or objects) are currently deposited in public institutions (notably the EFEO, the Musée du Quai Branly or the LESC-CREM). The biographical notes of the researchers indicate as precisely as possible the location of these additional resources.