This photograph showing the town of Gyantse (also seen as Gyangze, Gangtse, or Gyangtse in other sources) is from a collection of 50 photographs of central Tibet acquired in 1904 from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in Saint Petersburg by the American Geographical Society. In his 1904 article “Journey to Lhasa,” G.Ts. Tsybikov wrote: “[I]n the valley of the Nian-chu, stands one of the oldest towns of Tibet, Gyangtse, advantageously situated for trade with India. Carpets and cloth are made in this spot, widely renowned for its immense suburgan (temple), which is five stories high, and has numbers of rooms containing numerous statues of Buddha, some of them very old.” The photographs in this collection were taken by two Mongolian Buddhist lamas, Tsybikov and Ovshe (O.M.) Norzunov, who visited Tibet in 1900 and 1901. Accompanying the photos is a set of notes written in Russian for the Imperial Russian Geographical Society by Tsybikov, Norzunov, and other Mongolians familiar with central Tibet. Alexander Grigoriev, corresponding member of the American Geographical Society, translated the notes from Russian into English in April 1904.