A glorious history, once unparalleled prosperity, the only place where the four civilizations of the world meet, more than 1,000 years of negligence, a sudden and accidental discovery, an army of researchers and robbers - the list goes on. Dunhuang has gone through everything one city could possibly experience.

Behind all the splendour and lost memories there hides many a mystery about the city of vicissitudes.

At one point in its history, Dunhuang was an international metropolis of unparalleled prosperity. Why then today is it a city virtually abandoned in the Gobi desert in China's wild west?

For more than a millennium, people from every walk of life - generals, soldiers, craftsmen, farmers, businessmen, kings, believers, performers, poets, criminals, bandits, and adventurers - all swarmed to Dunhuang. What were the incentives that drove these people to Dunhuang in spite of extreme hardships?

Why are grottoes and frescos of enormous scale and supreme quality preserved there?

Why are hundreds of volumes of Buddhist scriptures hidden in Dunhuang, and who discovered them?

Why did the busy city suddenly decline, to the point of almost total neglect?

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