Mogao grottoes
| Mogao grottoes
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 Exterior view of the Mogao Grottoes |
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| Location: | Gansu ( PR China ) | |
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Geographic location: |
40 ° 2 '14 " N , 94 ° 48' 15" E | |
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The Mogao Grottoes ( Chinese 莫高窟 , Pinyin Mògāo Kū ) are a system of several hundred cave temples , located in a river oasis on the Silk Road in the Mogao (莫 高 镇) community in the city of Dunhuang , about 25 km from the city center. Dunhuang is part of Jiuquan in the Chinese province of Gansu .
Here, between the 4th and 12th centuries, Buddhist monks carved about 1,000 caves into the sandstone cliffs, which average 17 meters high, and decorated them with Buddhist motifs ( Buddha statues , sculptures and wall paintings). 492 of these caves are still preserved today and some are accessible to tourists. They belong to the Dunhuang Grottoes along with other caves in the Dunhuang area .
In 1900, the Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovered around 50,000 documents from the 4th to 11th centuries that monks had walled up in a cave in 1036 to protect them from the oncoming Mongols . The most recent document is dated to the year 1002. Many of these documents are now in the possession of the British Museum in London. In 1907 the archaeologist Aurel Stein discovered a print version of the Diamond Sutra in the Mogao Grottoes . At the same time, the French sinologist Paul Pelliot found manuscripts from the 4th / 5th centuries in grotto no. Century in Tibetan, Chinese and other Central Asian languages. In 1943 the Dunhuang Academy was founded ("Dunhuang Relics Research Institute", until 1994 under the direction of Chang Shuhong ) to protect and systematically conserve the caves. The grottoes and the Western Thousand Buddha Caves have been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (1-35) since 1961 . The Mogao Grottoes have been a World Heritage Site since 1987 .
Web links
- International Dunhuang Project
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Mogao grottoes
- Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts : A Glimpse of the Mogao Caves
- Mysterious Mogao grottos. Spiegel Online, June 26, 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Mogao Caves. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
Heritage: Great Wall of China (1987) | Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing ( Forbidden City ) and Shenyang (1987) | Mogao Grottoes (1987) | Qin Shihuangdis Mausoleum (1987) | Peking man's site in Zhoukoudian (1987) | Summer Residence and Eight Outer Temples near Chengde (1994) | Confucius Temple, Cemetery and Residence of the Kong Family in Qufu (1994) | Daoist shrines in the mountains of Wudang (1994) | Potala Palace (1994), Jokhang Temple (2000) and Norbulingka Palace (2001) | Lu Shan National Park (1996) | Lijiang Old Town (1997) | Old City of Pingyao (1997) | Classical Gardens of Suzhou (1997) | Yiheyuan Summer Palace (1998) | Temple of Heaven with imperial sacrificial altar in Beijing (1998) | Rock sculptures by Also (1999) | Mount Qingcheng Mountains and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System (2000) | Xidi and Hongcun Villages (2000) | Longmen Grottoes (2000) | Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (2000) | Yungang Grottoes (2001) | Capitals and Tombs of the Ancient Kingdom of Koguryo (2004) | Historic Center of Macau (2005) | Yinxu (2006) | Diaolou towers and villages in Kaiping (2007) | Tulou loam buildings in Fujian (2008) | Wutai Shan (2009) | Historical Monuments of Dengfeng (2010) | Cultural Landscape West Lake near Hangzhou (2011) | Xanadu Site (2012) | Hani rice terraces in Yunnan (2013) | Silk Roads: The Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor Road Network (2014) | Kaiserkanal (2014) | Tusi sites (2015) | Petroglyphs at Huashan and the Zuo Jiang River (2016) | Kulangsu: a Historic International Settlement (2017) | Liangzhu City Archaeological Ruins (2019)
Natural heritage: Jiuzhaigou Valley Landscape Park (1992) | Lime sinter terrace landscape Huanglong (1992) | Wulingyuan Landscape Park (1992) | Protection zones of the three parallel rivers of Yunnan (2003) | Sichuan Panda Nature Reserve (2006) | Karst landscapes in southern China (2007, 2014) | Sanqing Shan National Park (2008) | Danxia Shan at Shaoguan (2010) | Chengjiang Fossil Site (2012) | Tian Shan Mountains in Xinjiang (2013) | Shennongjia Forest Area (2016) | Qinghai Hoh Xil (2017) | Migratory bird sanctuaries along the coast of the Yellow Sea - Gulf of Bohai (Phase I) (2019)
Cultural / Natural Heritage: Tai Shan Mountain Region (1987) | Huang Shan Mountains (1990) | Mountain landscape of Emei Shan and Leshan Big Buddha (1996) | Wuyi Mountains (1999) | Fanjingshan (2018)