The caves are a passing brushstroke carrying the art and culture of peoples connected by the Silk Road. The Buddhist stories adorning their walls come from India and incorporate elements from Uygur, Iranian, and even Greco-Roman art. The materials used to tell these stories were carried all over this vast trade route. Lapis lazuli believed to be imported from Afghanistan, was ground into a very bright blue, which starkly contrasts with green atacamite, pearls, real gold, and a red lead that has since turned black. In what feels like the middle of nowhere, it seems a very unlikely place for the convening of global minds, but here we are – staring up at the ideas they wanted to share.

The paintings inside the caves have faded, the plasterwork has gaps, and statues have been removed, which leaves it to the viewer's imagination to recreate what it must have been like. Even so, there are still dozens of stories begging to be retold. Unlike similar caves in Dunhuang, Gansu province that use an entire wall for each story, stories in these caves fill small diamond-shapes that create a mosaic that is at once beautiful and mysterious. The stories themselves are dreamlike, with such tales as a thirsty monkey king (no, not that monkey king!) who finds a pool of water; seeing that all the footprints only go toward the water with none coming back, he rightly suspects a monster is present. The monster instructs him that he is free to drink from the pool, but no part of his body can touch the surface. Clever as he is, the monkey finds a hollow reed to suck the water from the bank – long before straws became commonplace.

Many more stories have yet to be reclaimed as the cave complex has only revealed a fraction of its secrets. Staff at the site tell China Daily that of the estimated 350 grottoes, only 269 have been numbered, with evidence suggesting there are still more buried underground.