Damagou Buddhist Site Museum 达玛沟佛教遗址博物馆

About Damagou Buddhist Site Museum

The museum stands in the desert outside the Qira county town. Qira County keeps many castle, Buddhist temple-site and ancient-tomb remains of the ancient Silk Road's southern route, and the Damagou Buddhist site cluster has so far been found to hold more than 30 Buddhist remains — a figure the Xinjiang Daily report sets beside the Book of Wei's Western Regions line 于阗俗重佛法，寺塔僧尼甚众. The Topulukdun shrine was found by local herders in 2000 and excavation began in 2002, after which more shrines were found beside it; the museum was built in 2007 to protect the shrine from natural and human damage, and it displays more than 100 objects including Buddha images and murals. Inside the shrine is a seated Buddha that has lost its head and hands, leaving the figure's wooden armature and straw exposed, and the surviving wall surfaces around it carry Buddhist murals the report places in the middle and late Tang style.

The county's own notice describes the museum as a 4A-level tourist attraction and a 全国重点文物保护单位 (Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level), established in August 2007, and calls it 新疆首个以壁画为核心的专题博物馆, Xinjiang's first specialist museum centred on murals — a description the notice makes and this record attributes to it. The same notice describes what the museum holds as 世界最小古代佛寺遗址, the world's smallest ancient Buddhist temple site, and records 108 precious objects, among them 毗沙门天残像壁画, 千手千眼观音壁画 and 三弦直头琵琶, which it says attest to the historical scene of the ancient Yutian kingdom it renders as 佛塔林立，僧众云集. The museum's area includes the 托普鲁克墩 1、2、3 号遗址展示区, and its address is printed as 策勒县达玛沟乡乌喀里喀什村 36 号.

What to look for

• The seated Buddha inside 托普鲁克墩佛寺, whose head and hands are gone and whose wooden armature and straw are left exposed.
• The Buddhist murals on the surviving wall surfaces around the Buddha, which the Xinjiang Daily report places in the middle and late Tang style of Buddhist art.
• 毗沙门天残像壁画, 千手千眼观音壁画 and 三弦直头琵琶 — three of the 108 precious objects the county's notice records.
• The 托普鲁克墩 1、2、3 号遗址展示区, which the notice includes in the museum's area.

Location & getting there

Getting to Damagou Buddhist Site Museum

Confirm the venue or campus, reservation channel and exhibition calendar. A museum name may cover more than one building.

• Search for 达玛沟佛教遗址博物馆 with 和田地区 and 策勒县.