Talk:Mogao Caves

Copy edit
I am trying to copy edit this article and have probably made some mistakes in understanding the text. I am assuming the Buddhist cave temples in China developed in muvh the same way as in India. I have written many articles on Indian rock-cut temples and rock-cut architecture. Please fix any mistakes I have made or let me know and I will fix them. The formatting of the photos is a problem as there is not enough text to support so many images. I hope some good sources can be found for the material. I will look for some.

Sincerely, Mattisse 01:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

POV
The discovery section seems to legitimise the European exploration at Mogao Caves. --Gomeying (talk) 10:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Doesn't read that way to me. --Gwern (contribs) 15:12 5 April 2009 (GMT)

Proposed Changes
I am a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to the history and culture of Dunhuang and the Silk Road and have a fair collection of books on the topic. The three best I added to the References list at the bottom of the page. However, I think there are some big problems with the page.

Construction section: "The caves were walled off" seems to confuse the cave complex (which was not walled off, although it was allowed to deteriorate) with the famous Library Cave (which was walled off around 1010). The quote from Akira seems strange to me since as far as I know he is a very minor scholar of Cave Library MSS, and since his account is at odds with the generally accepted (as far as I know!) explanation of what was put into the cave and why. (Sacred scriptures, to protect them from encroaching Arab armies - see Whitfield book). The sentence footnoted by reference 4 bears no relation that I could find to content at that reference point.

Discovery section: This section seems a little jumbled, jumping from the contents of the Library Cave to the roster of non-Chinese explorers who bought stuff from Abbot Wang to the international preservation projects underway today. But the discovery of the Library Cave in 1900 was the end of a very long story that is completely missing from the existing page.

I'd propose replacing the Construction and Discovery sections with Origins - Expansion - Decline - Rediscovery sections and differentiating the Library Cave from the cave complex in general. A short Preservation Efforts section might be appropriate to discuss both Chinese and international programs set up to preserve the legacy of the caves.

If anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please let me know.

Spjohnson93 (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Do add whatever that you think is necessary. Whether the page should have the structure you think it should have is up to you, although it is more standard to have a history section.  Currently the page is very incomplete. I'd remove the Akira quote, although the idea seems to have stemmed from original descriptions by Stein. Hzh (talk) 13:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Why was turned from left to right the same picture - General Zhang Qian go to the West? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.240.220.65 (talk) 09:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Objectivity
I deleted the vandalism section because it appeared to be written from a nationalistic point of view. Wiki article should be kept neutral and simply state facts. The facts about its discovery put neither the Chinese nor Westerners in a good light - the discoverer Wang was willing to sell its content (which didn't really belong to him), the Chinese themselves weren't interested in Wang's discovery until Westerners thought the discovery important, even afterwards the place was used to keep Russian soldiers (which showed the disregard by the local authority towards the place), the Chinese themselves stole the documents after they were taken away for safekeeping. The Westerners took a lot of the manuscripts, some of the explorers plundered the site by removing some murals and statues, the Russian soldiers cause some damage to the site,  Few in the early days of discovery came out of it looking good, so it is wrong to place emphasis on particular people. Hzh (talk) 11:05, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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