Life along a narrow wet edge
Reeds, aquatic growth and planted trees occupy different parts of the spring’s setting. Their textures make the boundary between water and desert visible.
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Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring
8 articles
The names of sand and water
Singing Sand, Sand Well, Medicine Spring, Crescent Spring: the place’s names gather sound, use and a distinctive shape.
Water at the edge of the routes
Dunhuang’s place in a network of journeys began with a landscape able to sustain settlement. The spring opens a small window onto that larger oasis.
The falling waterline and the spring’s recovery
The shrinking pool prompted decades of rescue work. Its recovery tells a story that reaches beneath the dunes into the wider basin.
How wind draws a dune
A grain’s short hop, a ripple and a long dune crest belong to different scales of movement. Wind and gravity connect them.
When sand begins to sing
Mingsha takes its name from a sound associated with moving sand. The physics begins with many grains acting together.
Water and dunes: a photographic portrait
A curved pool, a steep sand ridge, reeds and tiled roofs give Crescent Spring several scales of beauty. This illustrated feature moves between the whole basin and its smaller textures.
A spring in the lee of Mingsha
A crescent-shaped pool rests among the dunes south of Dunhuang. Its water, reeds and changing outline make a small oasis within a much larger field of moving sand.