Famous grottoes launch English service for virtual tour

Culture
Digital Dunhuang, a website that offers tourists a virtual tour of the renowned Mogao Grottoes, has launched its English version Wednesday.

XinhuaUpdated: September 21, 2017

Tourists can visit e-dunhuang.com to view 28 of the Mogao Grotto caves and two of the Yulin Grottoes through high-definition pictures and virtual reality (VR).

The website features photos, video clips, archival materials and a 360-degree view of the millennium-old caves carved from a sandstone cliff near Dunhuang City in northwest China's Gansu Province.

The Chinese version of Digital Dunhuang was launched in May 2016 on the same website.

Facing threats of natural erosion and human-induced damage, Dunhuang Academy has been working on a major digital archiving project since the 1990s and has finished filming frescoes in 150 caves.

The Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, feature a huge collection of Buddhist art, including more than 2,000 colored sculptures and 45,000 square meters of frescoes in 735 caves.

Wu Jian, head of the academy's heritage digitalization center, said Digital Dunhuang provides a platform for researchers and fans to better study the culture of these grottoes and frescoes.