Gansu Dunhuang Exhibition of Mogao Grottos, China

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Exhibition of Mogao Grottos

The world famous Mogao Caves is about 25 kilo miles away from Dunhuang City of Gansu Province. In 1987, it certified by United Nations ("UNESCO") as the World's Cultural Legacies.

The local government later built a museum called the Antiques of Dunhuang Rocky Caves Displaying Museum. Currently, it is the only institution in China preserving, researching and displaying antiques of rocky caves.

The museum has a video-audio hall and three exhibition halls. Films in the video-audio hall can help visitors learn about the goodness of art of the Dunhuang Caves, with the comment on the development of the process of the art.

Three of the exhibition halls have all kinds of literal interpretation for art works, which can deepen the tourists' knowledge about the long history of the caves and the evolution of Buddhist art.

In fact, the Mogao Caves take the leading position of the center of a grand art museum including nearby Yulin Caves of Anxi, Mount Wensu Rocky Caves, Changma Rocky Caves, East Thousand-Buddha Caves and West Thousand-Buddha Caves.

All these precious cave arts were create in different period and characteristic of those artworks, displaying a complete look of cave art in Dunhuang.

Exploration of new caves, were quite successful in recent years, approximately two kilo miles from the West Thousand-Buddha Caves; Discovery of the Rocky caves in the cracked cliff of the former Dang River valley. The exploration tunnel has advanced 200 meters with 6 caves finished.

The first cave has completed the surface processing work to restore the silk picture of Tang Dynasty "Preaching Under The Book", which was stolen by two visitors of the West. No doubt that these newly explored caves will bring surprise and pleasure to anxious tourists to Dunhuang.

The Mogao caves lies in a place called Mingsha hill full of yellow rice-shaped sand, with cliff top on the east and the mouth of Dang River on the west. They stand several meters high and like the blade of a knife. North to the Mingsha hill, there is a quiet spring measuring 118 meters long and 54 meters wide. As it looks like the thin shape moon, it gets the name Thin Shape Moon Spring.

Sand hills surround the spring tightly but the spring has not ever been buried by moving sand. The water in the spring is clear and you can see clear through the bottom. For many year the spring keeps its beauty as when it rains, not over floating and when it drought still keep is floats. This has been a wonder of the nature, which harmonize well with the sand hills and the spring.