L.A.-based Getty Conservation Institute Steps in to Preserve China's Mogao Grottoes

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Julie Makinen
The Getty Conservation Institute's 25-year partnership with Dunhuang Academy is
the institution's longest-running project. (Neville Agnew / The J. Paul Getty Trust)
CHINA---Hewn by hand out of a cliff face in the Gobi Desert starting about 1,700 years ago, China's most spectacular cache of Buddhist caves has endured countless assaults over the centuries. Yet thanks to some far-sighted planning by Chinese experts at the Dunhuang Academy, the researchers charged with preserving the caves, and their longtime partners at the L.A.-based Getty Conservation Institute (which has been working at Mogao since the late 1980s), the site's treasures are getting a fresh shot at survival — and even greater international exposure. A $50-million visitor center opened. [link]