ProTibetThe plateau · the work · the record
A vast high plateau of dry grassland under a huge sky, a snow range on the far horizon, no buildings in sight
01 The Plateau

Four thousand metres,
and everything follows

Barley ripens at the altitude where wheat will not. That single fact sets the staple, the herd, the fuel, the tent and the wall.

Twenty-four entriesStart at the barley line

Where to start

The plateau averages more than four thousand metres. Everything grown, worked or built on it is an answer to that one number.

  • 01 The stapleBarley ripens where wheat fails; roasted and ground it becomes flour that needs no cooking.Tsampa
  • 02 The workOne animal carries the load, the milk, the wool and the fuel.The Yak
  • 03 The wallNo frame, little timber: mass walls laid thick and leaned inward.Battered Walls

Six sections carry it: land, then the work done on it, then the record of both.

A thick battered earth wall in raking afternoon light with a small deep-set window
Battered walls

The inward lean is structural: a thick base narrowing as it rises keeps a mass wall standing without a frame.ProTibet picture library

The barley line

Farming stops where herding starts

Above roughly four thousand metres the valley floors carry barley and little else. Higher and drier, on the Chang Tang, there is no cultivation at all — only grass, and animals moved across it.

The Barley Line · Lakes of the Chang Tang
SOWN GRAZED BARLEY, ONE HARVEST YAK, SHEEP AND GOAT 4,000 M — THE BARLEY LINE 3,600 m7,100 m4,700 m YARLUNG VALLEYRANGE CRESTCHANG TANG BASIN

Read it in four

The shortest route through the site: one animal, one crop, one wall, one survey. Everything else hangs off these.

Or take all twenty-four
01 A yak wearing a decorated saddle stands before snow-capped mountains and a lake Barley and Yak

The Yak

Start with the animal that made the plateau habitable above the barley line.

 02 Roasted barley grain and a bowl of pale flour on a wooden board beside a hand grinder Barley and Yak

Tsampa

Then the crop it shares the ground with, roasted so the flour keeps and travels.

 03 The corner of a large white-rendered building with strongly inward-sloping walls seen from below against the sky Earth and Stone

Battered Walls

What the same altitude does to a wall: thick at the base, leaning inward as it rises.

 04 A hundred-bead rosary and a small hand-turned cylinder lying together on dark cloth, close, side light Mapping

Nain Singh Rawat

And how the whole of it was measured — on foot, in counted paces.

The six sections

Land first, then the work done on it, then the record of both.

All twenty-four entries
A high mountain pass with a rough track winding over it and prayer flags absent, bare rock and snow patches, hard light01 The Plateau

The Plateau

The ground everything else follows from.

Roasted barley grain and a bowl of pale flour on a wooden board beside a hand grinder02 Barley and Yak

Barley and Yak

What can be grown and what can carry it.

The corner of a large white-rendered building with strongly inward-sloping walls seen from below against the sky03 Earth and Stone

Earth and Stone

Building where there is little timber and less rain.

Small ceramic dishes of intensely coloured ground mineral pigment arranged on a wooden table with a brush04 Pigment and Cloth

Pigment and Cloth

Colour, cloth and the measured grid.

Chart of Tibetan alphabet letters arranged in rows with sample syllable combinations below05 Writing

Writing

A script, and what survived on paper.

A worn leather satchel, a compass and a folded hand-drawn route sketch laid out on a wooden table06 Mapping

Mapping

How the country got onto a map.

Small dishes of ground mineral pigment in strong colours beside a stretched cotton painting cloth on a low table
Mineral pigments

The colours are stones before they are paint — azurite, malachite, cinnabar and orpiment, ground and bound in hide glue.ProTibet picture library

A black tent woven from coarse yak hair pitched on open grassland with guy ropes pegged out, hard daylight
Black tents

Yak-hair cloth swells when wet and closes its own weave, so a loose fabric becomes a rainproof roof.ProTibet picture library

Named on the plateau

Positions as fixed by route survey
LhasaGyantseDunhuangNamtsoManasarovarKailashChang Tang80°E85°E90°E95°E28°N31°N34°N37°N40°N 0 500 KM N
  • A place an entry names — the pin opens that entry
  • Graticule at 5° of longitude, 3° of latitude
  • National outlines: China, India, Nepal, Bhutan
The registerHeight fixed by boiling point, position by sextant

Geometry and pin positions from the site's own map kit.

Set and printed with the support of

First impression
Second impression