Sacred Caves: Dunhuang, Buddhism, and the Silk Road

The Gobi is a long way. Empress Place is open late on Fridays.

Go on a Friday evening, when the museum stays open late, and start with Cave 158. Sacred Caves: Dunhuang, Buddhism, and the Silk Road, presented with the Dunhuang Academy at the Asian Civilisations Museum until 7 March 2027, puts four life-size replicas of the Mogao Caves in Empress Place, and the museum describes it as the first time this world has been shown in Southeast Asia. It suits anyone who would rather not travel to the edge of the Gobi for a strictly rationed tour, and children who will do anything for a stamp. The compromise: these are replicas, so the awe is in the scale and the craft rather than the age of the walls.

That is less of a compromise than it sounds. Fact Magazine reports that three of the four caves are restricted or off-limits to visitors at the real site. Cave 158, with its great reclining Buddha, is in the Level 2 foyer; Caves 249, 45 and 3 are in the Special Exhibitions Gallery. Cave 249, from the Western Wei dynasty, is the anchor and was reproduced entirely by hand. Cave 45 is a well-preserved Tang dynasty cave crowded with Buddha, disciples, bodhisattvas and guardians.

Around them are originals rarely seen outside China, among them a brick showing a Sogdian man leading a camel, a neat reminder that this was a trade route as much as a pilgrim's road. The galleries are grouped under City, Devotion and People, with three sound pieces by composer Sulwyn Lok and a digital colour trail.

For children there is a stamp rally: six stamps can be traded for a blind-box apsara figurine, which is the kind of incentive that gets small legs round a whole exhibition (and their parents round it rather faster than planned).

Ticket prices were not on ACM's exhibition page when we checked, so look at its booking link before you go. Crosscurrents, the Louvre loan show, is in the same building if you want to make a Silk Road evening of it.

Good to know Until 7 March 2027 at the Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place (nearest MRT: Raffles Place). Open daily, late on Fridays. Prices were not on ACM's exhibition page when checked; see its booking link for current rates.

Sacred Caves: Dunhuang, Buddhism, and the Silk Road | Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555 | Nearest MRT: Raffles Place