Backgrounder:
Located in the northwest China's Gansu Province, Dunhuang town was once an important cultural and trade route along the Silk Road linking Central Asia with China. Dunhuang attracts visitors mainly because it is contains some of the most priceless of Buddhist art in the world-- the Mogao Caves.
The Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, popularly known as the Thousand Buddha Caves, were carved out of the rocks stretching for about 1,600 meters along the eastern side of the Mingsha (Singing Sand) Hill, 25 km southeast of Dunhuang.
A Tang Dynasty inscription records that the first cave in the Mogao Grottoes was made in 366 A.D. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) listed the Mogao Grottoes on the World Heritage List in 1987.
Despite erosion and man-made destruction, the 492 caves are well preserved, with frescoes covering an area of 45,000 square meters, more than 2,000 colored sculptured figures and five wooden eaves overhanging the caves.
According to archaeologists, it is the greatest and most consummate repository of Buddhist art in the world.
Many pavilions, towers, temples, pagodas, palaces, courtyards, towns and bridges in the murals provide valuable materials for the study of Chinese architecture. Other paintings depict Chinese and foreign musical performances, dancing and acrobatics. The "Cave for Preserving Scriptures", was discovered by a Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu in 1900. The cave contains more than 50, 000 sutras, documents and paintings covering a period from the 4th to the 11th centuries. It was one of China's most significant archaeological finds. These precious relics are of great historical and scientific value.
In 1961 the Grottoes were listed by the State Council as one of China's key historical and cultural sites. Repairs were carried out from 1963 to 1965.
Between 1906 and 1919 the Dunhuang grottoes was looted. Much of the Hand-copied ancient books, manuscripts, literary works, Buddhist and secular decorative art works, and ancient manuscripts were removed by Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, Sergei Feodorovich Oldenburg and other archaeologists.
Chinese scholars such as Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei cultivated the study of Dunhuang culture by publishing a number of books in 1910. The Dunhuang Art Academy was established by Chang Shuhong later.
