Digital Reincarnation for Dunhuang's Buddhist Art

TIMES LIVE

Inching their cameras along a rail inside the chamber, specialists use powerful flashes to light up paintings.

CHINA---One click after another illuminates colourful scenes of hunters, Buddhas, flying deities, Bodhisattvas and caravanserais painted on the walls of the Mogao caves in northwest China, considered the epitome of Buddhist art -- and now in existential danger. From the fourth century onwards the 492 largely hand-dug caves near Dunhuang, a desert oasis and crossroads on the Silk Road, acted as a depository for Buddhist art for around a millennium. Unesco describes the World Heritage Site as "the largest, most richly endowed, and longest used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world". The digitisation project -- which has been running for decades. It is an immense task. [link]