Invincible Against Time and Tide

Putting minuscule flakes of paint back on a painting more than 1,000 years ago. Inspecting a cave that has been around for a millennium for fungal and other infections. Restoring tiny fragments on a stone wall dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

These are some of the tasks Su Bomin, a “doctor” of murals, does daily during his round of the famous Dunhuang murals, the Buddhist wall paintings on hundreds of grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, thought to have been created between the 4th and 14th centuries on the Gobi Desert.

“The longer I work here, the stronger my connection to the cultural relics becomes. I now have a special feeling for them,” Su, Director He has been working in the caves for 29 years.