Digital caves bring history alive

Rigorous approach

In the digital version of the caves stands the Sanjie Temple, a well-known nearby historical site that no longer exists.

According to Zhao Xiaoxing, director of the Dunhuang Textual Research Institute, Dunhuang Academy, scholars speculate that the manuscripts found in Cave 17 were part of a 10th-century large-scale sutra restoration project at the temple. Some of them might be materials used by the monks to repair the manuscripts.

Zhao wrote the scripts and storyline for the game, based on the academy's decades of research.

The several-second presentation of the 3D model temple took the technological team months of effort. When it was almost completed, it fell over, and the team had to start over.

Zhao explains, the original design was so grand that it looked more like an official temple in cities such as Chang'an, today's Xi'an in Shaanxi province, and Luoyang, Henan province, and, as such, didn't fit the surroundings of the Mogao Caves.

They then worked with the academy's ancient architectural expert Sun Yihua, reexamined historical references and adjusted the design, from the layout to the main body of the architecture, and even the orientation of the statues on both sides of the pagoda gate.

A large group of young scholars at the academy, specializing in various fields like literature, art, music and dance, archaeology and new media technologies, have been participating in the digital cave project, with meticulous verification of every scene and detail, Zhao says.

The game can be accessed either on the website Digital Dunhuang, or via the WeChat miniprogram, Cloud Museum of Dunhuang Caves.

According to the two organizations, in the near future, Digital Library Cave will be available in multiple languages, including English, Japanese and Korean, as this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, and Dunhuang, sitting in the Hexi Corridor, the main artery of the ancient Silk Road, historically served as a vital crossroads for trade, religious and cultural exchanges.