Digitalization enables permanent preservation of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in NW China’s Gansu

Digital technologies have enabled the permanent preservation of cultural relics inside the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Dunhuang city, northwest China's Gansu Province.

Photo shows Jia Yao, an official virtual cartoon figure of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang city, northwest China's Gansu Province. [Photo courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy]

Protecting the Mogao Grottoes has become a daunting task due to a variety of problems, such as changes in the colors of the ancient paint after exposure to light, the efflorescence of the frescos over time, and the variable changes in humidity and heat generated by visitors, all of which can cause damage to the invaluable frescos. Digitalization is an important way to keep the grottoes alive forever.

The Dunhuang Academy inaugurated "Digital Dunhuang", a digitalization project, in order to create digital versions of the Mogao Grottoes in the 1990s. The project aims to establish complete digital files on the grottoes, including its full collection of cultural relics, by processing and permanently storing 2D and 3D data through the application of photogrammetry and 3D digital reconstruction technologies, among other approaches.

"By the end of 2021, the project had finished compiling a digital data collection on 268 grotto caves in Dunhuang, image processing for 164 caves, and the 3D reconstruction of 45 painted sculptures, 146 caves and seven ruins, while delivering a panoramic tour program for 162 caves. Our academy also completed the digital scanning of more than 50,000 archived images and established a digital team with over 100 members," said Wu Jian, director of the Dunhuang Academy's Conservation and Research Division.

Visitors watch a digital film about the Mogao Grottoes at a digital display center located inside the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang city, northwest China's Gansu Province. [Photo courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy]

Wu introduced that the academy has not only provided digital support for the protection of cultural relics located inside the Mogao Grottoes and around Gansu Province, but also offered digital solutions to 14 museums in other provinces and cities.

In 2014, a digital display center for the Mogao Grottoes was also built. The center developed films about the site's history and the fantastic artistic works found inside the grottoes using the collected digital files and showcased the films to visitors. This has made it possible for the cultural heritage of Dunhuang to be exhibited at various venues outside of the grottoes.

Meanwhile, the Dunhuang Academy has established a digital platform for the exhibition of the grottoes, permanently preserving Dunhuang's cultural and artistic resources while creating conditions for carrying out academic research and diverse usage scenarios for these resources.

By visiting the website "Digital Dunhuang" launched by the academy in 2016, people from around the world can now be immersed with high-definition images and a panoramic tour of 30 famous caves inside the Mogao Grottoes. In September 2017, the English version of "Digital Dunhuang" was launched, bringing the grottoes to even more people in 78 countries, including the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Australia. The website has so far seen more than 15.6 million visits.

Photo shows the rendering of a cave on the website "Digital Dunhuang". [Photo courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy]

In addition, the academy launched a mini-program offering online tours of the Mogao Grottoes in 2020, which has given people a chance to enjoy the artworks found inside the grottoes from up close and personal whenever they want, avoiding any of the damage to the frescos that would be caused by in-person visits. By the end of 2021, the mini-program had recorded more than 50 million visits.

The academy has also held 30 digital exhibitions in different Chinese cities, including Beijing and Hong Kong, as well as in countries such as the U.S., Russia, and Oman.

Recently, the academy and Chinese tech giant Tencent partnered together to launch a digital laboratory to build a full-scale digitalized replica of the Library Cave of the Mogao Grottoes. They will restore all of the minute details of the cave's ancient frescos and cultural relics within a millimeter-level accuracy of 1:1.

The two sides also created an official virtual cartoon figure of the Mogao Grottoes, named Jia Yao. As the first digital Dunhuang cultural ambassador, Jia Yao will engage the public through virtual live broadcasts of exhibitions and cross-sectoral cooperation for the promotion of innovations in intellectual property.