A photo exhibition of 108 rarely seen images of Mongolia will open at the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts at 4:00 p.m. today, August 13^th.

The photo exhibition, inspired by Czech archeologist Lumír Jíls' (1921/04/18 – 1969/11/22) private collection of rare archival photos, is being displayed by the Institute of History at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Czech Republic Embassy to Mongolia.   These rare photos, taken during a joint Czechoslovakian-Mongolian expedition in Mongolia, are being displayed for the first time.

Prominent Czech archeologist, historian on Turkic history in Mongolia and the Orkhon Valley, art historian specializing in the art of Mongolia, Tibet, and Japan, led the 1958 joint Czechoslovakian-Mongolian expedition to excavate the head of a statue commonly attributed to the eastern Turkic prince Kül Tegin (d 731 CE) in Khushuu Tsaidam.

Lumír Jíls led Mongolian expeditions in 1957, 1958, and 1963 with prominent Mongolian scholars B.Rinchen, Kh.Perlee, N.Ser-Odjav. During the expeditions he took extremely interesting black and white photos of Mongolians and their surroundings. The archeologist died in an accident and the photos were stored in a private archive for half a century. The 108 photos from the unique collection of 2,000 will be displayed for the first time for the public.