Dunhuang

Dunhuang Mogao Caves, also known as Thousand Buddha Caves or Mogao Grottoes, is a group of ancient caves which were built in different dynasties. It is famous for exquisite murals and various sculptures kept inside the caves. With 735 caves, more than 45,000 square meters of murals, 2,415 colored sculptures of different size, Mogao Caves is one of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world from which you can trace the development of Chinese art over 1,600 years from one dynasty to the next because each dynasty built own caves to record its own features. The site along with Longmen Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes and Maijishan Grottoes are four greatest Buddhist grottoes in China. More than 50,000 collections emerged from the discovery of the so-called “Library Cave” in 1900, and were dispersed around the world. So far, most of the its manuscripts and relics are collected by museums and libraries in Beijing, London, Paris, Paris, St . Petersburg and Japan.