Digital Dunhuang

The ancient silk road facilitated the political, economic, and cultural interactions between the East and the West. As different civilizations met, mingled with, and learned from each other, cultures from the East and the West were fused together here. And now, the cultural heritages that embody the silk road, given new life by cutting-edge digital technologies, are contributing to cultural dialogues of the world in new ways.

Digital Dunhuang: high-tech preservation

In the early 1990s, Fan Jinshi, the then executive deputy director of Dunhuang Academy, recognizing the possibility of permanently storing cave data with the help of computers, photography, and other technologies started in-depth research into digital preservation technologies by collaborating with the partners such as the US-based Northwest University, China’s Zhejiang University, and Wuhan University. In 2006, the Academy assembled a team of professional experts in the digital preservation of cultural relics under the newly-founded Digital Center. This marked the full-scale roll-out of the project to preserve Dunhuang Caves through digitization. Thirty years on, the Academy now has a full range of digitization solutions to the preservation of immovable heritage as well as vast stores of digital resources. The target of perpetual conservation and utilization has been achieved for Dunhuang Caves. The Academy is also a source of technical support for digitization endeavors at 13 historic sites across 7 provinces in China.

Digital Dunhuang: global access

As a result of continued inputs to the project of digitization-based preservation of Dunhuang Caves, Dunhuang Academy now possess enormous amounts of digital resources. As of 2022, the following milestones were reached: photographing 278 caves for digitization purposes, image processing for 164 caves, 3D reconstruction of 145 painted sculptures and 7 large sites, panoramic roaming of 162 caves, and digitization of over 50,000 archived negative films. In 2016, with the launch of the Digital Dunhuang Repository, high-resolution images and panoramic roaming of 30 caves became available globally. In September 2017the repository started to offer English services, putting Dunhuang culture within easy reach of a global audience. So far, a cumulative total of 16.8 million visits, from China, America, Britain, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada, France, Spain, and others have been recorded.

Digital Dunhuang: dialogue enabler

Thanks to Digital Dunhuang, digital cave resources are now managed on a large-scale, digital, and integrated platform, and one-stop online access to Dunhuang’s cultural heritages is possible. By enabling international dialogues on Dunhuang cave arts, it is raising the profile of Dunhuangology among global researchers of digitization and humanities. The many forms of online content, generated by a creative process of reinvention, are helping introduce China's finest traditional culture to a global audience and fueling a cultural boom in the shared cyberspace. With the help of the Internet, it is possible for everyone, wherever they are and whenever they want, to benefit from new perspectives on Dunhuang cave arts and the rich knowledge contained within world cultural heritages. This promises greater spiritual abundance for all and further advancement in human civilization.