敦煌 Dunhuang

Set up as a commandery in 111 BC under Emperor Wu of Han, Dunhuang guarded the western gate of ancient China — the meeting point where the Silk Road split toward Europe and India.

公元前111年，汉武帝设敦煌郡——中国西陲的大门，丝绸之路在此分道通向欧洲与印度。

The Mogao Caves hold 735 grottoes and 45,000 m² of murals painted across ten centuries — the world's largest treasury of Buddhist art, carved into a desert cliff.

莫高窟在戈壁崖壁上凿出735个洞窟、四万五千平方米壁画——十个世纪不断笔，是世界上最大的佛教艺术宝库。

Beyond the caves: crescent-shaped spring in endless dunes, wind-carved Yardang castles, and camel caravans at dusk — the desert here is a landscape and a legend at once.

石窟之外：沙山环抱的一泓月牙泉、风蚀的雅丹城堡、黄昏的驼队——这片沙漠既是风景，也是传说。

The name Dunhuang means 「grand and glorious」 — and for a thousand years this oasis was exactly that: every merchant, monk and envoy between China and the West passed through its gates.

「敦煌」二字，意为盛大辉煌——一千多年里，这座绿洲名副其实：往来中西方的商队、僧侣与使节，都要经过它的城门。

In 1900, a Taoist priest accidentally opened a sealed cave in the Mogao complex — the Library Cave, holding fifty thousand manuscripts from the 4th to 11th centuries, giving birth to a whole discipline: Dunhuang studies.

1900年，一位道士在莫高窟偶然打开一间封闭的洞窟——藏经洞。五万件4至11世纪的文书由此现世，「敦煌学」从此成为一门世界学问。

Today the caves are protected by the Dunhuang Academy with digital archiving on a scale unmatched anywhere — the murals that survived two millennia are being preserved for the next one.

今天，敦煌研究院以世界领先的数字化技术保护石窟——穿越两千年的壁画，正在为下一个千年留存。