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The Mogao Caves, or Mogao Grottoes (Chinese: mò gāo kū), also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas and Dunhuang Caves, form a system of 492 temples 25 km (15.5 miles) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China.<br/><br/> The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out 366 AD as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient sculptural sites of China. The caves also have famous wall paintings.
Maqāma (literally 'assemblies') are an (originally) Arabic literary genre of rhymed prose with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous. The 10th century author Badī' al-Zaman al-Hamadhāni is said to have invented the form, which was extended by al-Hariri of Basra in the next century. Both authors' maqāmāt center on trickster figures whose wanderings and exploits in speaking to assemblies of the powerful are conveyed by a narrator.<br/><br/> Manuscripts of al-Harīrī's Maqāmāt, anecdotes of a roguish wanderer Abu Zayd from Saruj, were frequently illustrated with miniatures.
A caravanserai or khan (Persian: kārvānsarā, Turkish: kervansaray) was a roadside inn where travellers could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-Eastern Europe, especially along the Silk Road. They were found frequently along the Persian Empire's Royal Road, a 2500 km long ancient highway that stretched from Sardis to Susa according to Herodotus.
Halting places, generally styled caravanserai in Turkish and Persian, were established by rulers to promote and protect the trade that enriched their kingdoms. Ideally these were roadside inns placed a day apart where travellers could eat, sleep and recover from the day’s journey, with their animals securely tethered, watered and fed, and their precious goods safely within walls.<br/><br/> Mingsha Shan (Singing Sand Dunes) are situated about 4km south of Dunhuang. They are the largest and most impressive sand dunes in China. The main dunes rise to between 250m and 300m. They are called ‘Singing Sands’ because the shifting grains of sand make a humming noise in powerful winds.<br/><br/> The Kumtagh Desert is a section of the Taklamakan Desert which lies east-southeast of the Desert of Lop.