The Tianshan Mural

The Aksu region of Xinjiang preserves the thousand-year-old legacy of ancient Kucha. Among its treasures, the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves, with their exquisite murals and distinctive artistic style, stand as a symbol of Kucha culture and are even hailed as "China's Second Dunhuang." On the cave walls, the Buddha's compassion in sacrificing himself to feed a tiger intertwines with the everyday sights and sounds of ancient Kucha: people cracking whips to drive camels and the strains of pipa music filling the air. The secrets of Silk Road civilization are carved, stroke by stroke, into the folds of the Gobi Desert. Yet after suffering the plunder of early foreign expeditions and the ravages of the natural environment, these brilliant colors are peeling away inch by inch, turning to the dust of history. These "doctors of murals" devote their lives to a single pursuit. With painstaking craftsmanship, they mend the cracks left by time, restoring the splendor of millennia-old murals and ensuring these treasures of civilization endure through the ages.