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Our reporter Lu Yanxia: How to tell the public a "comprehensive" story about Dunhuang? Sanlian Bookstore recently launched a general reading about Dunhuang, "Great Dunhuang", to solve this problem with a book.

The book brings together 10 scholars from major Dunhuang research centers such as Peking University, Dunhuang Academy, and Dunhuang Research Institute of Lanzhou University, including Wu Hung, Rong Xinjiang, Gu Chunfang, and Zheng Binglin. They are either professional art historians, experts in medieval history and the Silk Road, or artists and sculptors themselves, or have been involved in Dunhuang history and culture research for nearly 30 years. It can be said that this book is about Dunhuang, told by a group of people who understand Dunhuang best.

"Great Dunhuang" has nine major themes: return, look back, explore, offer, waves, observe, imagine, listen, and travel. It approaches Dunhuang from all angles, including historical geography, material life, art and culture, aesthetic appreciation, and cultural relics protection.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is themed on history and culture. Rong Xinjiang's lecture on returning to the Silk Road is the first lecture, exploring the important position of Dunhuang in the exchange between the East and the West, and telling the cultural soil behind the creation of the Mogao Grottoes. Then, Zheng Binglin reveals the origin of the name "Dunhuang" through detailed historical materials, and tells from a geographical perspective the people of all ethnic groups who have traveled to Dunhuang for more than a thousand years. The last lecture of the first half ends with the discovery of the Sutra Cave and the rise of Dunhuang Studies. It not only tells the regrettable dispersion of Dunhuang cultural relics, but also fully explains to readers why "Dunhuang is in China, and Dunhuang Studies is in the world."

The second half of the book deeply analyzes the comprehensive overall art of the three-in-one Dunhuang Grottoes architecture, colored sculptures, and murals. As a sculptor, He E displays the vivid Dunhuang colored sculptures; Gu Chunfang interprets in detail the "wonderful sound" presented in the Dunhuang musical murals, and focuses on the symbolic meaning of the Dunhuang flying fairy; Zhang Yuanlin takes us into the food, clothing, housing and transportation of the Dunhuang people through the various life details in the Dunhuang murals.