Wang Yuanlu and the hidden room behind Cave 16

Wang Yuanlu was a Daoist priest and former soldier who settled at Mogao around 1899. The caves were still a place of worship, and many rooms and structures needed attention. Wang took responsibility for repairs and clearing sand from the site. During this practical maintenance, he came close to the architecture and its concealed corners; one of them held a chamber closed for centuries.

In 1900 Wang found a sealed doorway in the corridor of Cave 16. It led to a small chamber now called Cave 17, which had been closed for centuries. Inside were tens of thousands of manuscripts, paintings, textiles and other objects, many dating from the fourth to eleventh centuries. The room had earlier served as a memorial chamber for the monk Hongbian. Its change into a repository made the discovery extraordinary: an enclosed room had preserved a paper archive beside a much larger cave sanctuary.

Aurel Stein visited in 1907 and acquired bundles of material from Wang. The following year, French sinologist Paul Pelliot spent three weeks examining the remaining collection by lamplight. His Chinese fluency let him read and sort manuscripts directly; he selected texts in languages other than Chinese as well as printed works and other items. Pelliot's choices sent thousands of objects to Paris, while Wang continued to negotiate with visitors whose scholarship and imperial resources shaped what left Dunhuang.

Cave 17 opens a view onto many lives through documents in Chinese, Tibetan, Sogdian and other languages: letters, contracts, government records, religious texts and school exercises. Materials from the chamber are now held by institutions in several countries, where cataloguing helps researchers reconnect fragments and compare them. Wang’s story sits at the beginning of a modern archive that extends from the original room to collections around the world.