Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves

Sandstone cave temples cut into the cliffs of the Flaming Mountains

A complex of 77 rock-cut Buddhist cave temples carved into a sandstone cliff above the Murtuk River valley, in the Flaming Mountains 50 km northeast of Turpan. The caves date from the 5th to 14th centuries; their frescoes — Buddhist iconography, Sogdian merchants, Uyghur royalty — were once among the finest in Central Asia.

Most of the best frescoes are gone, either chiselled out by foreign archaeologists a century ago or defaced by later religious iconoclasm. What remains is still affecting, and the setting at the rim of a narrow gorge is as dramatic as any in Xinjiang. Allow two hours plus driving time; usually combined with Gaochang and the Flaming Mountains.

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A story
The Bezeklik caves were a major Buddhist monastic centre between the 5th and 14th centuries. Many of the most spectacular surviving frescoes were hacked from the walls in the early 20th century by German archaeologist Albert von Le Coq and shipped to Berlin, where most were destroyed in Allied bombing during World War II. The empty spaces and chisel scars are still clearly visible in the surviving caves.