敦煌莫高窟
The Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Caves of A Thousand Buddhas, are set into a cliff wall of the Singing Sand Mountains about 25km southeast of Dunhuang, the oasis city in the Gobi desert. The 3 or 4 tier grottoes extend 1.6 kilometers. According to historical records, the Mogao Grottoes were carved in 366 AD. There are 492 grottoes in existence with some 45,000 square meters of murals, and 415 painted clay figures. It represents the height of Buddhist art and the world's richest treasure house of Buddhist sutras, murals and sculptures. The rich culture and art unearthed in the caves has even given birth to a new field of study, Dunhuang studies!
The caves vary enormously in size, from tiny single-room cells that served as living quarters for individual monks to huge, cavernous worship halls housing monumental sculptures and mural cycles. The caves honeycomb a 1,600-meter-long cliff face running north and south, and contain some 2,000 clay sculptures and more than 45,000 square meters (484,000 sq. ft) of mural paintings. The soft stone in the region is unsuitably brittle for carving, so the sculptures are primarily made of clay, coated with a kind of plaster surface that allowed finishing details to be painted on or engraved. In spite of the erosion caused by wind and drifting sand for some thousand years, of the 1,000 or so caves cut between the foundation of the site in 366 AD and the last efforts in the 14th century Yuan period, 492 are still more or less well preserved. All have been subjected to some degree of various kinds of damage or indignities, from the long term erosion of wind and water, to the smoke from fires built by bivouacked troops. Ongoing restoration efforts are underway to preserve the caves and their contents.
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