Caves of Longmen

See also: Longmen (homonymy)

The caves of Longmen (Chinese: 龍門石窟; Pinyin: lóngmén shíkū ; literally the caves of the Door of the Dragon ) are with 12 kilometers in the south of modern the Luoyang in the province of Henan in China. The caves, which are devoted to Buddhist subjects, are densément present between two mountains, Xiang Shan (in the east) and Longmen Shan (in the west). The river Yi runs towards north between these two mountains. For this reason, the place was called Yique (carries Yi river). North in the south, the caves follow one another on approximately a kilometer. With the Caves of Mogao and the Caves of Yungang, the caves of Longmen are one of the three more famous sites of old sculpture of China.

Statistics

According to the Research institute of the Caves of Longmen, there exists: 2345 caves and niches: 2800 inscriptions, 40 Pagoda S and more: 100000 Buddhist images on the site. 30% of the caves date from the Dynastie Wei of North, 60% of the Dynastie Tang, and less than 10% for the other periods.

History

With course of the Period of the kingdoms combatants, the general Qin Baiqi overcame the forces Han and Wei on the site.

The construction of the caves began in 493.

The caves are registered on the Liste of the world heritage of UNESCO since November 2000.

Caves described individually by dynasty

Septentrional Wei

Caves of Guyang
Caves of the means Binyang (140)
Cave of the Lotus
Cave of Weizi
Cave of Huangfugong

Sui

Cave of southernmost Binyang (159)

Tang

Fengxiansi
Cave of the 10.000 Buddhas
Cave of the Temple of the hidden River (20)
Kanjingsi
Cave of Dawanwufo
Cave of septentrional Binyang (104)

Visits

External bonds

Descriptive UNESCO
Document of evaluation (2000) Evaluation preliminary to the inscription with the world heritage realized by ICOMOS
Photographs of the caves of Longmen in '' Panoramio ''

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