Datong, Shanxi, China
云冈石窟博物馆 · Yúngāng Shíkū Bówùguǎn
A half-buried museum under a wave-shaped roof, inside the Yungang scenic area. It tells who the Northern Wei were, how their capital at Datong paid for the caves, and shows what archaeologists found in front of the caves and on the cliff above them. Come here before the caves and you will know what you are looking at.
Photo: Liuxingy, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Yungang caves were cut by the Northern Wei (386–534), a dynasty founded by the Xianbei, horsemen from the northern steppe. From 398 to 494 their capital was Pingcheng, today's Datong, and in those years the city gathered craftsmen, monks and wealth from across northern China and the Silk Road. The caves were its greatest work.
The museum, built around 2011 at the edge of the scenic area, tells that story with objects: carved stones, roof tiles, pottery and Buddha heads found in front of the caves and in the ruins of the temples on top of the cliff. Its long roof rises and falls like the honeysuckle scrolls carved round the cave doors, and much of the building lies below the ground so as not to stand taller than the cliff.
Part of Yungang Grottoes. Also there: Yungang Caves, Lingyan Temple (Yungang).
Close by, with a page of its own: Yungang Caves, Lingyan Temple (Yungang).
The museum is inside the Yungang scenic area and covered by the Yungang ticket.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The museum | Yungang ticket |
| The caves | Yungang ticket |
The roof curves over the entrance and runs on in long waves. Look for the same line on the doorframes of Caves 9 and 10: a vine with three-lobed leaves, a pattern that came along the Silk Road and replaced the old Chinese dragons and cloud scrolls as the favourite ornament of the age.
Inside, the rooms go in order: who the Xianbei were, the capital at Pingcheng, the carving of the caves, and the finds of the excavations. An hour here makes the caves read like a book rather than a wall of statues.
"The museum holds the famous statues." The great Buddhas cannot be moved and are all in the caves. The museum holds smaller finds, and copies and models that explain them.
"Everything missing from the caves is here." Many heads were cut off and sold abroad in the 1910s and 1920s and are now in museums in New York, Paris and elsewhere.
Give the museum an hour, best before the caves. The five points below follow the rooms.
The Xianbei came from the forests and grasslands north of the Great Wall. Their Tuoba clan founded the Northern Wei in 386 and in 398 made Pingcheng their capital. The first rooms tell how a riding people became rulers of northern China and took up Chinese ways of government.
For almost a century Pingcheng was the centre of northern China. Glass and silver from Persia and Central Asia have been dug up in Datong; craftsmen and monks were moved here by the thousand from conquered cities. The honeysuckle vine on tiles and bricks shows the new taste: plants in place of beasts.
The first five caves were begun about 460 on the proposal of the monk Tanyao. The masons worked from the top down: first the window above the door, then the head of the Buddha, then down to his knees. Keep that in mind when you stand under one.
Excavations in front of the caves since the 1990s and on the clifftop from 2008 to 2011 found Buddha heads, clay figures, roof tiles and the floors of Northern Wei temples. A stone Buddha dug up in 1991 in front of Cave 20 and a disciple's head found in 1993 in the clifftop temple ruins are among the finds that have travelled to exhibitions.
In the 1910s and 1920s heads and figures were cut from the caves and sold. One bodhisattva head from Yungang is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, another figure in the Musée Cernuschi in Paris. When you reach the caves, look for the clean cuts where heads used to be.
Pingcheng became the capital in 398. Twelve years later, in 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 398 | The Northern Wei make Pingcheng their capital | Christianity is the state religion of the Roman Empire |
| 460 | The first five caves are begun | Attila the Hun has been dead seven years |
| 494 | The court moves to Luoyang | Clovis rules the Franks |
| 2001 | Yungang becomes a World Heritage Site | The euro coins are minted for the next year |
One line to remember: the caves are the book; the museum teaches you to read it.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
The five great Buddhas of the first caves are said to stand for the first five emperors of the Northern Wei, so that worshipping the Buddha meant honouring the throne.
Source: A widely held reading, after the saying of the time that the emperor was the Buddha of today
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Checked 2026-11-12 Yungang Academy, which runs the site and the museum. Tickets are sold through its WeChat account and authorised platforms.
Last checked 2026-11-12. Chinese guide listings for the building (2011, 6,640 square metres) and the Yungang ticket rules of 2025–26 as reported in the press; the museum has no notice of its own online.
Checked 2026-11-12
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