Gansu Province - Maiji Mountain Grottoes麦积山石窟

Located near Tianshui, a major city in Eastern Gansu Province, Wheat-Pile Mountain (The Maiji), reputed as the “Oriental Sculpture Museum,” is 142 meters high. The name comes from the fact that the mountain looks like a stack of wheat. There are altogether 194 grottoes (the grottoes are divided into east grottoes and west grottoes) in all, and there are 54 grottoes in the east, and 140 grottoes in the west. All of them are cut on cliffs, 80 meters above the ground on the southern side of the mountain. The grottoes contain more than 7,200 clay or stone sculptures and over 1,300 square meters of murals, both of which are works of the 4th to 19th centuries (Northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, the Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming, And Qing dynasties )—making them a perfect example of China’s sculpture through the ages. In addition to clay sculptures, there are more than 2,000 pieces of pottery, bronze ware, ironware, and jade articles, ancient books, documents, paintings, calligraphy and other cultural relics in the 194 grottoes. The highest figure is about 16 meters, and the smallest being only 10 centimeters. Its exquisite clay sculptures are well known not only in China but also abroad. One salient feature of the grottoes is that the only means of communi8cation between the caves is a plank road built on the face of a precipice. The gigantic road project must have taken on-lookers’ breath away.

The grottoes have applied to the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for admission onto the World Heritage List.

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