Experts Find out How Dunhuang Grottos Were Caved

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 01, 2002

Experts Find out How Dunhuang Grottos Were Caved

Dunhuang caves, as a treasure of China's grotto art, have arrested the world attention. By now answers have been found on who and how these caves were built.

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Dunhuang caves, as a treasure of China's grotto art, have arrested the world attention. By now answers have been found on who and how these caves were built.

Dunhuang experts have discovered the answers from piles of documents. As learned, the cave builders can be classified into three categories, the cave owner, the patron (who gives money for the cave building) and the workers. Workers are further classified according to their jobs, such as mason, sculptor, painter, and carpenter.

A Dunhuang document gives detailed explanation on how a cave was built, including cliff polishing, cave digging, painting, sculpturing and decorating. Segmented files showed that the construction time was affected by the cave size, owner's financial condition and social changes. Cave owners were usually officials, senior monks, noble families as well as common people.

Generally speaking, it needs one to three years to dig out a big cave, and four or five years for one over ten meters high. Painting and sculpturing need a relatively shorter time, usually three to six months.

Affected by transportation and labor conditions between the caves and the ground, some caves of later times were made between earlier ones, according to Lanzhou Evening. Caves of the same period were usually put together, which turned out as a center for later ones to expand.

By PD Online Staff Member Li Heng

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