Mogao Caves

Cave 96's nine-storey timber facade rises against the cliff of Mingsha Mountain, sheltering a 35.5-metre clay Maitreya, one of the largest indoor clay statues in the world.

Originally a memorial chamber for the late-Tang monk Hongbian, the cave was found by Taoist Wang Yuanlu in 1900, sealed for centuries and holding over fifty thousand manuscripts and silk paintings.

A fifteen-metre painted reclining Buddha from the High Tang depicts Shakyamuni entering nirvana, while the rear wall shows seventy-two disciples and foreign princes in mourning.

Using dome-screen films and high-definition 3D scanning, this pioneering heritage digitization project preserves the desert cave art for future generations.

Part of Mogao Caves's history: Guarding Dunhuang. Painter who copied the wall paintings of the Mogao and Yulin caves at Dunhuang from 1941 to 1943, turning to a grander, archaic manner, and in later life developed splashed-ink and splashed-colour landscapes.

Part of Mogao Caves's history: Guarding Dunhuang. Oil painter who, back from France, went to Dunhuang in 1943 and in 1944 became first director of the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, leading the protection of the Mogao caves and the copying of their murals.

Part of Mogao Caves's history: Guarding Dunhuang. Copyist and scholar of the Dunhuang murals who reached Mogao in 1946, copied more than 340 murals in a few years, and in 1984 became the first president of the Dunhuang Academy.

Traditional accounts place Le Zun's excavation of the first Mogao cave at about 366; the golden-light episode is retained as tradition, not fact.

In 1900, the Daoist Wang Yuanlu discovered the Library Cave while clearing sand at Mogao, bringing long-sealed Dunhuang manuscripts back to public attention.

Guarding Dunhuang

Zhang Daqian went to the Mogao Caves to copy their murals, and Chang Shuhong founded the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, which cleared the sand, walled the site and surveyed and copied the caves: after centuries of neglect, Mogao began to be protected and studied systematically.

From 1941 to 1943 Zhang Daqian, with family members and pupils, spent two years and seven months copying murals at the Mogao and Yulin caves, producing more than 270 copies.

On 1 January 1944 the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute was founded at Mogao with Chang Shuhong as its first director, giving the caves a resident body for their protection and study.

In 1987, the Mogao Caves were inscribed for a millennium of Buddhist cave architecture, murals, and painted sculpture.