At the Mogao grottoes, a World Heritage Site near Dunhuang in the Gobi Desert, generations of Buddhist monks created hundreds of rock temples. Nearly five hundred of these grottoes remain, lined with painted clay sculptures and wall paintings that depict legends, portraits, customs, and the arts of China over a one-thousand-year period.

This volume of symposium proceedings marks the culmination of the first phase of the Getty Conservation Institute’s collaborative project with the State Bureau of Culture Relics of the People’s Republic of China and the Dunhuang Academy.