Dragon Gate Longmen Caves China Tourism VR Map Links

Luolong District, Luoyang, Henan, China

The Longmen Caves also known as The Longmen Grottoes are works of giant Buddhist temples carved from rock into the sides of the mountain rock, there are tens of thousands of buddhist temples carved into this rock making it a very popular spot for people interested in ancient China. The caves are artificial and carved from limestone, there are two and a half thousand caves throughout here with as many as ten thousand buddhist temples carved from the rock from outside and inside the Longmen Caves also referred to as the Dragon’s Gate, and nobody knows and celebrates dragons quite like the Chinese. This all started in the Wei Dynasty during 493 AD which would host guest to Emperors, generals and Royalty aswell as rich families and religious groups. This area stands today as a world heritage site and protected by the government who have a new keen interest in the tourist trade

Statue carvings

The detail of these carvings into rock are incredibly detailed that even made the Ming Dynasty marve and protect it, this area has huge cultural significance to the Chinese

Link Location Gps 34.5528092

GPS Coordinates / 34.553601, 112.469383

The Eastern side of these caves was where the residents and monks would reside, there are approximately 1,400 caves and over one hundred thousand statues ranging from 1 inch high to an enormous 57 Feet high (17m) in height, the credit of the statues go to several different dynasties such as the Wei, Zhou, Sui and Tang dynasties. In total it served 13 dynasties and the caves were carved by the Buddhists during the rocky time of their religion slavery and life dedication was the norm then, quite the vast difference that's seen today in the compassionate buddhism we see today in celebration

Much like the Egyptian culture these statues and caves were built out of celebrating death, three of the largest caves were built by Emperor Xuanwu of Wei who built, two for his father and one for his mother which taken roughly 24 years to build, during this time 30 percent of the caves were built so it has concentrated interest of people who visit here

Link Location Gps 34.55478

Gps Coordinates / 34.55478,112.470732

The Dragon Caves of longmen where the Monks who would dedicate their lives to creating these sculptures would like many thousands of years ago, these caves go on for miles and complete with massive Buddha sculptures

Link Location Gps 34.5529408

Gps Coordinates / 34.5529408,112.4763322

During the second world war these caves were looted and stolen by the Japanese, many of the loot and relics still remain in the Japanese museums much to the anger of the Chinese, with the political unrest that would remain from 1940 alot of vandalism happened at that time, unsure if it were the Japanese but by 1949 with the Rise of communism it was declared a protected site and guarded as a heritage area of high importance, the last time before it had a cultural revival would be the Ming Dynasty of 1368 to 1644 then with the Qing dynasty protecting it right up to 1912 the world wars after that was quite the test for this world heritage site