Do you have any heroes who know the difficulties that Dunhuang tourist attractions are facing now ~

Too few tourists? The dilemma faced by Dunhuang tourist attractions now is that there are too many tourists and too many damages, and the grottoes are protected.

In addition to the damage caused by peeling, cracking and mold propagation, the walls of large-scale murals have shifted and fallen off, and the moisture generated by groundwater and rain has dissolved the salt in the soil, which has produced a chemical reaction and is also eroding and destroying these Buddhist works of art. Many murals are on the verge of death.

In the gloomy grottoes, a lot of blue and red have fallen off the murals of Buddha statues, and a thick and deep crack has appeared around the necks of some Buddha statues. In Cave 98 of the Mogao Grottoes excavated in the Five Dynasties, four deep cracks were drawn on the cave wall, which almost covered the whole body of the Buddha statue. Experts and technicians from Dunhuang Research Institute are repairing the cave, and scaffolding has been set up in many places, making the cave look very small. The person in charge of the restoration technology office of Dunhuang Research Institute said that there has always been a gap between the wall base of the mural and the rock wall below, covering an area of about 5 square meters. If there is no plate support, repair it as soon as possible and it is likely to collapse.

In another cave No.53 built in the middle Tang Dynasty, the face of the Buddha statue was covered with black mildew spots, and the face was basically invisible. It is said that rain fell into the cave decades ago, and mold kept multiplying, which caused serious damage to the face of the Buddha statue. Although the mold is dead now, there is no way to repair it. The wall base made of grass and soil in the cave has been fluffy as cakes in many places, and the problem of peeling and damage is very serious.

The murals in the Mogao Grottoes are miraculously preserved because they are in a dry area with an annual rainfall of only 30 mm. However, moisture was recently found 30 cm underground in the cave. The evaporation of underground moisture dissolved the salt in the stratum and distributed to the cave with the moisture, resulting in crystallization. In this process of repeated expansion and contraction, the thin-walled base is destroyed. Some people think that the cause of moisture production may be related to two factors, one is groundwater with snowmelt water as its water source, and the other is irrigation water for greening around Mogao Grottoes.

The results also show that the increase in the number of tourists is also one of the reasons for the increase in humidity. At most, more than 3000 people visit the grottoes a day. In a narrow grotto, a large number of people will change the temperature and humidity, resulting in an increase in humidity in the grotto.

In order to protect these murals full of cultural exchanges between the East and the West, Dunhuang Research Institute is cooperating with Japanese research institutions and universities to discuss how to protect these murals and actively carry out restoration work. Dunhuang Research Institute will investigate the deterioration of all murals by endoscope and ultrasonic from this year. It is urgent to take fundamental measures to protect Dunhuang murals.