Dunhuang

1 · POSITION

Dunhuang stands where the northern and southern Silk Roads meet, at the edge of the Gobi, the last place a caravan could rest before the desert. The register holds it for two kinds of reception: the posthouse that fed envoys on the road, and the monasteries whose cave temples kept the record of who passed. [1, 2]

2 · THE CAVES

In the fourth century a wandering monk cut a meditation cave in the cliffs near the town, and others followed; by the eighth century there were more than a thousand cave temples, painted and sculpted. They were abandoned gradually from the thirteenth century as the Silk Roads declined, but stayed places of pilgrimage into the twentieth. [1]

3 · THE LIBRARY CAVE

In 1900 Cave 17 was found to hold thousands of manuscripts and other objects, sealed around 1000 and left largely undisturbed — the written record of the people who lived on and travelled the road. [1]

4 · THE POSTHOUSE

Near Dunhuang the Han posthouse of Xuanquan received envoys and kings on their way to the capital and kept the bills for their reception on bamboo and wooden slips; it was inscribed with the Silk Roads corridor in 2014. The register holds it under the yi relay stations. [2]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ Checked on 22 October 2026. Lodging for monks is confirmed: the IDP account records free lodgings for travelling monks at Dunhuang. Monastery lodging as an early hospitality format remains the register’s phrase. [1–3]