The erudite and influential Edouard Chavannes was a French archaeologist and Sinologist, the first person to achieve real recognition for the discipline. Known primarily as the translator of numerous chapters of the Shiji, or The Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian at the end of the second century BC, he also completed two photographic expeditions to China. The first (1889–1893) focused on the tombs and headstones of the Han period. The second was particularly concerned with Buddhist art and the sculptures of ancient China. Many of the pictures from this expedition are held at Musée Guimet.