An exhibition of 67 relics from the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, will open in Taiwan on March 25, featuring 26 Grade One items.

The four-month-long exhibition is cosponsored by the Dunhuang Academy and Taiwan's University of Fine Arts. The Taipei History Museum will host the display for two months before it moves to Kaohsiung for another two months.

The Mogao Grottoes form a system of 492 underground temples near the northwestern city of Dunhuang, once a strategic site on the Silk Road. The first cave temple is believed to have been built in 366 AD, with the number eventually growing to more than 1,000.

Between the 4th and 14th centuries, the grottoes became a repository of scriptures and Buddhist art. The murals for which Mogao is now best known cover an area of some 42,000 square meters.

The grottoes were abandoned in the 14th century and forgotten until 1900, when a Taoist priest named Wang Yuanlu discovered the enormous collection of ancient manuscripts that had been hidden there.

Today, the site is an important tourist attraction and the subject of archeological studies. It was inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1987.

(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2005)