Dunhuang

Silk Road oasis town in western Gansu. The Mogao Grottoes (UNESCO) are 492 Buddhist cave temples carved into a cliff between the 4th and 14th centuries — the greatest surviving Silk Road art repository in the world.

Dunhuang was the western end of the Hexi Corridor and the gateway between the Chinese heartland and the Taklamakan Desert. Silk Road caravans heading west divided here to take the northern or southern route around the desert; those arriving from the west were 1,500 km from the nearest major Chinese city. The oasis town owed its prosperity to that position.

From the 4th century CE onward, Buddhist pilgrims and monks began carving meditation caves into a sandstone cliff at Mogao, 25 km southeast, decorating them with painted murals of Buddhist cosmology, jataka tales, historical donors and landscape scenes. The work continued for nearly a thousand years and under the patronage of successive empires. 492 caves survive, containing approximately 45,000 m² of surviving wall paintings — the largest collection of Buddhist art in the world. UNESCO-listed since 1987.

Visits are tightly managed to limit humidity and physical damage: groups are taken by guide to eight or so caves in rotation, with the most-significant caves reserved for smaller specialist tours booked months in advance. The Dunhuang Academy's digital exhibition centre provides immersive virtual visits to caves normally closed. The physical visit still impresses; the scale of continuous painted walls across hundreds of rooms makes an impression that no reproduction can match.

Outside the caves, the Mingsha sand dunes rise 250 metres directly behind the town, with the Crescent Lake (Yueyaquan), a spring-fed pool that has persisted for centuries despite the dune movement, in their valley. The Han-dynasty Yumen Pass and Yangguan Pass, 80–100 km west and southwest respectively, are isolated archaeological sites in open desert: two low walls and a tower in one direction; a rammed-earth foundation and dune in the other.