Page 120 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

Desert joined at Tunhuang, the gateway to China. There, in A.D.
366, pilgrims had hewn from the soft rock the first of what were
to develop during the next thousand years into a range of nearly
five hundred chambers and niches set about with plaster sculpture
and adorned with frescoes. Further stages on the pilgrim route
into China were marked by cave shrines at Ping-ling-ssu, about
fifty miles southwest of Lanchow, and Mai-chi-shan, twenty-
eight miles southeast of T'ien-shui. The former was only redis-
covered in 1951, while restoration of the latter, which had always
been known to the people of the T'ien-shui district, did not begin
till 1953. In their spectacular sites and the quality and richness of
their sculpture these shrines surpass Tunhuang, whose glory lies
chiefly in its paintings.