The Yulin Caves () is a Buddhist cave temple site in

Guazhou County Guazhou County (), formerly (until 2006) Anxi County () or Ansichow, is a county in the northwest of Gansu province, the People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of Jiuquan City. History Emperor Wudi (140-87 BCE) had the ...

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

, China. The site is located some east of the oasis town of

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

and the Mogao Caves. It takes its name from the elm trees lining the Yulin River, which flows through the site and separates the two cliffs from which the caves have been excavated. The forty-two caves house some 250 polychrome statues and of wall paintings, dating from the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (seventh to fourteenth centuries). The site was among the first to be designated for protection in 1961 as a

Major National Historical and Cultural Site A major cultural heritage site under national-level protection () is the highest protection level approved by China for immovable cultural relics. According to the 2002 Cultural Relics Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, the Natio ...

. In 2008 the Yulin Grottoes were submitted for future inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Chinese Section of the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

Caves

Most of the caves take the form of an entrance corridor, antechamber, and main chamber. In three caves, a central pier was left intact during excavation then carved with niches on all four sides. A number of caves were reworked and repainted in later periods, since the site remained in use throughout the

Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...

, Five Dynasties, Song, Western Xia, and Yuan Dynasties. It fell into disuse during the Ming Dynasty. There were early efforts to restore the caves at the time of the Qing Dynasty and several new caves also date to this period. More recently, under the management of the

Dunhuang Academy The Dunhuang Research Academy (), originally the National Research Institute on Dunhuang Art, is a "national comprehensive institution" responsible for overseeing the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located near Dunhuang in Gansu, China. ...

, the focus has been on preventive conservation through

consolidation Consolidation may refer to: In science and technology * Consolidation (computing), the act of linkage editing in computing * Memory consolidation, the process in the brain by which recent memories are crystallised into long-term memory * Pulmon ...

of the cliff face and controlling access.

Wall paintings

The paintings are Buddhist with some secular scenes, the former including

buddhas In Buddhism, Buddha (; Pali, Sanskrit: 𑀩𑀼𑀤𑁆𑀥, बुद्ध), "awakened one", is a title for those who are awake, and have attained nirvana and Buddhahood through their own efforts and insight, without a teacher to point out ...

, bodhisattvas,

apsara An apsaras or apsara ( sa, अप्सरा ' lso ' pi, अक्चरा, translit=accharā) is a type of female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hinduism and Buddhist culture. They figure prominently in the sculpture, dance, literat ...

, and jataka tales; and the latter,

donor portrait A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or (much more rarely) her, family. ''Donor portrait'' usually refers to the portr ...

s, go players, representatives of China's ethnic minorities, marked out by their hair styles and dress, farming scenes such as milking a cow, wine-making, a smelting furnace, and a marriage ceremony; depictions of musicians and dancers help break down the distinction between the sacred and the profane. The paintings are not frescoes but instead executed on an earthen render with mineral and organic pigments and

gum Gum may refer to: Types of gum * Adhesive * Bubble gum * Chewing gum * Gum (botany), sap or other resinous material associated with certain species of the plant kingdom ** Gum arabic, made from the sap of ''Acacia senegal'', an Old World tree s ...

glue Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advant ...

binders Ring binders (loose leaf binders, looseleaf binders, or sometimes called files in Britain) are large folders that contain file folders or hole punched papers. These binders come in various sizes and can accommodate an array of paper sizes. The ...

List of caves

The forty-two caves are dated as follows, based largely on the style of the paintings and their accompanying inscriptions (in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

, Mongolian,

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

, Sanskrit, Tangut, and Old Uighur):

References

External links

Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road (1st Conference) (GCI)

* ttp://dsr.nii.ac.jp/photograph/anxi/0008.html.en Images of the Site and the Area (National Institute of Informatics)*
Yulin Caves (Dunhuang Academy)
{{Coord, 40, 3, 33, N, 95, 56, 10, E, display=title, region:CN_type:city_source:dewiki Buddhist grottoes in Gansu Chinese painting Guazhou County Tang dynasty art Tang dynasty Buddhist temples Western Xia architecture Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Gansu

Caves

Wall paintings

List of caves

See also

References

External links