Dunhuang, China : a diamond in the sand dune

Dunhuang has long been an important landmark for the Silk Road travellers.  It can be a great relief for those travellers coming from the West.  They have succeeded in crossing the dangerous desert.  For those travellers going West, they have loaded up their supplies before starting their harsh journey. 

The fate of Dunhuang was very much tied to the development of the Silk Road in the past centuries. During the Han and Tang periods, the  City of Dunhuang gained its prosperity from the busy Silk Road.  After the fifteenth century, sea trade routes took up most of the traffic. The name of Dunhuang regained its fame when Aurel Stein drew world's attention to the Dunhuang Mogao Caves in the early 1900s.

The Silk Road traders, travellers and monks built beautiful Buddhist shrines by cutting caves from the hill slope about ten kilometers from Dunhuang.  The development process continued over a century.  It became a live museum for the long cultural history of the Silk Road.

(Mogao caves from a distance)



(Entrance to the Mogao caves)


There are many beautiful Buddhist murals in the caves.  They are valuable cultural artifacts for study of the Silk Road and the spread of Buddhism.  If you are interested to study these murals in details, you can refer to 段文杰、樊錦詩(编)：<<敦煌石窟全集>> (香港：商務印書有限公司，2005). The authors spent more than three decades since 1960s in studying and preserving the murals.

If you are in Dunhuang, you should not miss seeing the natural wonder of Ming Sha Sand Dune and Crescent Moon Lake. 



(Ming Sha Sand Dune and Crescent Moon Lake)

In the middle of the sand dunes, there is a water pond with vegetation around.  You can hear the sound of strong wind blowing up sand over the sand dunes.  Yet, the water pond has not been dried up and covered by the moving sand in the past century.  Do you know why?