Bezeklik Caves
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The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves is a complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to 14th century between the cities of Turpan and Shanshan (Loulan) at the north-east of the Taklamakan Desert near the ancient ruins of Gaochang in the Mutou Valley, a gorge in the Flaming Mountains, in the Xinjiang region of western China. They are high on the cliffs of the west Mutou Valley under the Flaming Mountains, and most of the surviving caves date from the West Uyghur kingdom around the 10th to 13th centuries.
Bezeklik caves
Praṇidhi scene, temple 9 (Cave 20), with kneeling figures with tributes praying in front of the Buddha who Albert von Le Coq assumed were Persians. However, modern scholarship has identified them as Sogdians, an Eastern Iranian people who inhabited Turfan during the phases of Tang Chinese (7th-8th century) and Uyghur rule (9th–13th centuries).
Phoenix-headed konghou, 10th century A.D., cave 48.
View of the valley
Turpan
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Turpan is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of 69,759 square kilometres (26,934 sq mi) and a population of 693,988 (2020).
Jiaohe Ruins
Wall painting from a Christian church, Qocho (Gaochang) 683–770 CE
Maheshvara, Turpan, 10th–12th century.
Buddhist Uyghur king from Turpan attended by servants. Depicted in Dunhuang Mogao Caves, Western Xia dynasty.