敦煌莫高窟北区洞窟清理发掘简报

Clearing-up of Caves in the 2nd Section of Mogao Grotto Temples

敦煌莫高窟按洞窟分布情况分为南北两区。南区洞窟大都是礼佛用窟,是过去敦煌研究的重点;北区主要是僧人们的生活用窟,过去研究较少。1988年至1995年,敦煌考古工作者对北区洞窟做了多年的工作,共清理发掘僧房窟、禅窟、瘗窟和仓库窟243个,出土了大批遗物,包括多种文字的文献、佛经,古钱币,木、陶、铜、铁器,丝绸、棉麻毛织物以及一枚波斯萨珊朝银币。这是近年来敦煌考古的重要收获。本期刊发了简报。

The Dunhuang grotto temples were carved out of a 1700-m section of rock cliff on theeastern side of the Mingsha Mountain. They can be divided into a northern and southerngroup. The latter includes nearly 500 coded caves, most of which serve the purpose of wor-ship. Great amounts of mural paintings and carvings in them are the focus of the hithertoDunhuang research. Many northern caves are connected with those next to, above and below them insome area, caves in four or five layers are found mutually connected. Since caves in thenorth served as living quarters of monks, they have not attracted enough attention fromscholars due to the lack of mural paintings and carvings. From 1988 to 1995, archaeologists of the Dunhuang Academy conducted discontinuousclearing of 243 caves. These caves were found having different functions. There are livingquarter, closet for religious meditation and discipline, tomb and storage. A large yield of relics include documents written in Chinese and other languages, Bud-dhis xts, print blocks carved with the Uighur script, ancient coins, wooden objects, porce-lain and textile of silk, cotton, linen or wool and a small amount of bronze, iron, bone andhorn objects. A Sassanian silver coin is the most remarkable.