Gansu · Modelled in Clay, Not Carved in Stone
Maijishan Grottoes (麦积山石窟)
A hill of soft red sandstone in the mountains of eastern Gansu, its cliff face cut with caves full of Buddhist figures. The rock is too crumbly to carve, so almost everything here was modelled in clay on the wall, which is why the faces look like people.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A cave-temple complex cut into an isolated sandstone hill, reached by walkways bolted to the cliff |
|---|---|
| Where | Southeast of Tianshui in eastern Gansu, on the old corridor between the Wei valley and the west |
| The name | It means wheat stack, after the shape of the hill, which the picture above makes obvious |
| Listed | A UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed as part of the Silk Roads corridor |
| The material | Clay modelled over armatures fixed into the rock, then painted. Only some large figures are cut from the cliff itself |
| How you see it | From tiers of walkways and stairs cantilevered off a near-vertical face |
| Also here | Painted plaster surviving in fragments, badly eroded in most caves |
| Time needed | Half a day on the cliff. A full day with the temple at the foot and the museum |
Why Go
Soft Rock, and What That Made Possible
1. The material decided the art
Chinese cave temples are usually carved. At Yungang and at Longmen the sculptors cut into hard stone and the figures are part of the cliff, which produces a particular kind of image: broad, static, and finished to the limits of what a chisel will do in that material. Here the rock is a soft conglomerate that crumbles under a chisel and will not hold an edge, so the method was different. Wooden pegs and armatures were driven into the wall, straw and clay were built up on them, the figure was modelled by hand, and the surface was painted.
That change of material changes what a face can do. Clay takes a thumbprint. It allows an eyelid to be thinned to a millimetre, a cheek to sag, a mouth to be pulled sideways. One of the pictures below is an elderly monk with a furrowed brow, a hooked nose and a sour, amused expression, hands clasped, and he reads as a particular person rather than as a type. Another is a head with an unmistakable smile. Stone sculpture of the same centuries is magnificent and it does not do this.
The cost of that is fragility. Clay cracks, plaster falls off walls, and pigment fades: the painted fragment in the gallery below is most of what survives of the wall it was on. A great many figures are behind mesh or glass now, and one of the pictures here is a Buddha head photographed through rusted diamond grille, which is the ordinary condition of viewing at this site.
2. You look at it from a scaffold
The caves are in a face that is close to vertical, and they were reached originally by timber structures pegged into the rock. What is there now is a system of concrete decks cantilevered off the cliff with painted railings and zigzagging flights of steps, rebuilt in the twentieth century, and climbing it is a large part of the experience. One of the pictures below shows the whole face from below: five or six levels of walkway, stairs crossing between them, cave doors opening straight onto the drop.
This has two consequences worth knowing before you go. The first is that anyone uncomfortable with heights will find the upper levels genuinely difficult, because the decks are narrow and the exposure is complete. The second is that the visit is a one-way circuit on a fixed route in a queue, and at busy times the pace is not yours.
It is also worth knowing what the site is not. This is not a place with a single spectacular chamber to stand in. It is a great many small niches seen through doorways and grilles, one after another, from a walkway. What makes it worth the journey is cumulative, and the third level is usually where a visitor stops looking at sculpture and starts reading faces.
The catch. The circuit is steep, exposed and fixed, and in high season it moves at the pace of the group in front. Most caves are closed by grilles or glass and lit poorly, and the special caves that hold the best material need a separate and expensive ticket arranged in advance. Photography inside is restricted. Tianshui is also a long way from anywhere on a standard itinerary, and the site deserves a guide who can tell you which dynasty you are looking at, because the sequence on this cliff runs across several centuries and nothing on site explains it.
Orientation
A Hill, a Face, a One-Way Route
The site is one isolated hill. A temple sits at its foot, the caves are in the south face, and the route runs up one side of the cliff, across the middle where the colossal figures are, and down the other. A shuttle runs from the car park to the foot of the hill, and from there it is steps.
Because the circuit is one-way and fixed, the only real decisions are when to arrive and whether to buy access to the restricted caves. Early is better on both counts: the light is on the face in the morning and the walkways are empty.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Arrange the special caves in advance
The finest material is behind locked doors and the tickets are limited and expensive. Turning up and asking rarely works.
Go early
The face looks east and south. Morning light reaches into the niches, and the walkway is empty before the coaches.
Take a guide who knows the dynasties
The figures span several centuries and the differences are the interest. Nothing on site explains them.
Think about the heights
The upper walkways are narrow, exposed and busy, and the circuit runs one way, so turning back is not a discreet option.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| May and June | Green, mild and the light reaches well into the niches | Building toward the summer crowd |
| September and October | Clear air, comfortable walking and autumn colour around the hill | The first week of October is a national holiday |
| Winter | Snow on the surrounding hills and an almost empty walkway, which is what the aerial pictures here show | Cold and exposed on the cliff, and some upper sections may close in ice |
| July and August | Long days and full opening hours | Hot, and this is the peak of domestic travel |
Context
Why a Cave Temple Is Here at All
Tianshui sits where the Wei valley narrows toward the mountains, on the road that carried traffic between the Chinese capitals and the corridor running northwest to Central Asia. Buddhism came into China along that road, and so did the practice of cutting temples into cliffs, which had travelled from India through Afghanistan and the oasis towns. The cave temples of northern China are strung along that route like milestones, and this is one of the eastern ones.
Cutting them was expensive and the money came from the same sources everywhere: rulers buying merit, officials buying association with rulers, monastic communities, and merchants who had survived the journey. Work at this cliff went on across several dynasties, with long gaps, so the figures change with height on the cliff: the early ones spare and elongated, the later ones rounder and more worldly. Reading that sequence is the reason to come, and it is exactly what an unguided visitor cannot do.
The site then dropped out of sight for centuries. It was known locally and largely ignored by the outside world until surveys in the twentieth century put it back on the map, by which time an earthquake had split the cliff face and a great deal of the painting had gone. The walkways that make a visit possible are part of that rediscovery, which is why they are concrete: the site was made accessible by the same people who were trying to work out what was in it.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 350 km east
The Terracotta Army (兵马俑)
The eastern end of the same corridor, outside Xi’an.
Spot · about 400 km east
Mount Hua (华山)
The granite peaks above the Wei valley, on the way between here and Xi’an.
Spot · about 600 km northwest
Zhangye Danxia (张掖七彩丹霞)
Further out along the corridor, where the road runs between the mountains and the desert.
Where to Base
Tianshui (天水)
Tianshui is a mid-sized Gansu city on the high-speed line between Xi’an and Lanzhou, which makes the grottoes far easier to reach than their remoteness suggests. The site is about an hour southeast of the city by road.
Most visitors come out from Xi’an or break the journey to Lanzhou here. A night in Tianshui buys an early start at the cliff, which is worth more at this site than at most, because the light and the queue both change within an hour.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · half day
The cliff circuit
The one-way route across the face, taken early, with time at the colossal figures and the upper niches.
On site · half day
The restricted caves
Access to the locked caves holding the best of the modelling, which has to be arranged beforehand.
Guided · 6 days
The corridor, east to west
Xi’an, this cliff and the Hexi corridor beyond it, so that the cave temples are read as a line along a road rather than as separate sights.
Come for the faces. The rock here was too soft to carve, so the sculptors modelled in clay instead, and clay let them do eyelids and sagging cheeks and a monk with a sour expression. Get there early, arrange the locked caves if the sculpture is the point, and take somebody who can date the niches.
Gansu, on the Way West
This cliff is the best argument on the Silk Road corridor for stopping between Xi’an and the desert, and almost no itinerary does. Tell us your dates and our local team will get you onto the walkways before the coaches, sort the restricted caves, and join it to the rest of the corridor.