久別重逢的石雕 ─ 雲岡石窟窟前出土的幾件石雕找到了位置=On the Discovery of the Original Resting Place of Several Stone Sculptures Excavated from the Front of the Yungang Grottoes
In the summer and autumn of 2013, more than five hundred broken stone sculptures that had fallen from caves when a cliff collapsed were excavated when reconstruction of the eaves of the Wuhua Caves at the Yungang Grottoes commenced. Old pictures of some of these stone sculptures can be found in vol.14 of Yun-Kang complied by Seiichi Mizuno and Toshio Nagahiro in 1954, and some of these sculptures can be matched with pieces excavated in 1992 from the front of the Tanyao Five Caves. All facts show that these stone sculptures were once unearthed from the Tanyao Five Caves site in the 1940 s by Japanese scholars, and for unknown reasons, they were buried again in the north-south trial trench just in front of cave 12, which is quite far from the Tanyao Five Caves. This investigation has established the original positions of several stone sculptures in the caves, which are of certain value for understanding and restoring the statues, and for further academic study.
