Maji Mountain Groftoes

Located near Tianshui，a major city in Eastern Gansu Province，Wheat-Pile Mountain（The Maii），reputed as the“Oriental Sculpture Museum，”is 142 metres high.The name comes from the fact that the mountain looks like a stack of wheat.There are allogether 194 grottoes（the groftoes are divid-ed into east grottoes and west grottoes）in all，and there are 54 grottoes in the east，and 140 grottoes in the west.All of them are cut on clifs，80 me-tres above the ground on the southern side of the mountain.The grottoes contain more than 7 200 clay or stone sculptures and over 1 300 square me-tres of murals，both of which are works of the 4th to 19lh centuries（Northern Wei，Western Wei，Northern Zhou，Sui，Tang，the Five Dynasties，Song，Yuan，Ming and Qing dynasties）-making them a perfect example of China’s sculpture through the ages.In addition to clay sculptures，there are more than 2000 pieces of pottery，bronze ware，ironware，and iade articles，ancient books，documents，paintings，callgraphy and other culfural relics in the 194 grottoes.

The highest figure is about 16 metres，and the smallest be-ing only 10 centimetres.It exquisite clay scuiptures are well known not only in China but also abroad.One salient feature of the grottoes is that the only means of communication between the caves is a plank road built on the face of a precipice.The gigantic road project must have taken on-lookers’breath away.

The groftoes have applied to the United Nations’Educational，Scientific and Cultural Organization（UNESCO）for admission onto the World Heritage List.

qingquang

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