Edited by Neville Agnew
1997
404 pages

Downloadable in 8 sections.

This volume of symposium proceedings marks the culmination of the first phase of the GCI's collaborative project with the State Bureau of Cultural Relics of the People's Republic of China and the Dunhuang Academy. The book also represents the first conference to bring together Chinese and Western scholars on the subject of grotto conservation. Various approaches to site management are discussed, along with conservation principles and practice and geotechnical and environmental issues. Individual articles address visitors' impact on the microenvironment of caves, nondestructive techniques for analyzing local stone and pigment, methods of protecting caves from ongoing environmental damage, research on ancient materials and techniques, and analyses of stone sculpture. More than 40 articles are included, many translated from Chinese.