Developing Guidelines for Conservation and Management of Gansu Province Grottoes

When Buddhism began taking root along the Silk Road in China in the fourth century, scores of grotto sites were constructed in what is now Gansu Province. The Mogao Grottoes, along with Maijishan and Binglingsi Grottoes, have World Heritage status under management of the Dunhuang Academy. There are 128 grotto sites in the province protected at the national, provincial, or county level. Together, they represent the full range of grotto types and contribute to a holistic understanding of the thousand-year history of Buddhism along the Silk Road in Gansu.

Despite their historical, artistic, and environmental diversity, they share many attributes that lend themselves to a more uniform, regional approach to their conservation and management. Recognizing the need and opportunity to provide guidance to managers of these sites, the Dunhuang Academy and Getty Conservation Institute, as part of their three-decades long collaboration, developed a set of practical guidelines, Guidelines for Conservation and Management of Grotto Sites in Gansu Province adapted from the Principles for the Conservation of Heritage Sites in China, to a specific heritage type prevalent on the Silk Road.

The guidelines were developed over five years (2018–2023), with study tours and meetings with site personnel to grotto sites throughout the province by a joint team from the Dunhuang Academy, Getty, and the Gansu Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau. The resulting document is intended as practical guidance aimed at promoting and enhancing their conservation, research, utilization, and management.

Values

Understanding the values of grotto sites is well recognized as the basis for making decisions and is therefore emphasized in the Guidelines. The historic and artistic values of grotto sites are certainly the best known and have been well studied, published, and presented to the public for many decades, but landscapes, both cultural and natural, are equally important values, but are less well recognized, and so have been given special attention in the Guidelines.

Historical Research and Archaeological Investigation

Research on grotto sites has been undertaken for decades by the Dunhuang Academy and other scholars, but there are different aspects of research and investigation that are important for conservation and management purposes at both the individual site level and the regional level, such as understanding the modern history of grotto sites, especially in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; investigating local and provincial archives, and oral histories of residents in communities who use the sites; and regional archaeological surveys, and the use of remote sensing and GIS technology.

Conservation

The challenges of preserving grotto sites are considerable. The geological and environmental diversity of the grotto settings strongly affected the types of Buddhist art created in the grottoes in ancient times, and today influences the types of conservation problems encountered. Acknowledging these differences, the Guidelines emphasize monitoring and preventive measures and the need for training of site personnel, as well as cooperation between sites, and sharing of resources and knowledge.

Site Management

The Guidelines focus attention on the importance of planning and management to all aspects of successfully preserving a grotto site, beginning with developing a master plan, with staff involvement, that addresses all the relevant issues and ensures the smooth running of daily operations. This includes site personnel and their training, regular maintenance, treatment of setting, documentation, and design and siting of infrastructure.

Use and Presentation

An increasingly important sub-set of management relates to contemporary uses of sites. Use is both an important social value and a major challenge for site managers, addressed in a separate chapter of the Guidelines. The larger grotto sites, especially the World Heritage sites, have become centers of tourism. They require carrying capacities and often complex systems of managing visitors sophisticated ways of presentation and interpretation to visitors. The many small or rural sites, however, may only receive local visitors, but maintain a strong connection with local communities, where training and education may be needed for local residents about the significance and care of ancient sites, particularly when it comes to excessive restoration.