云冈石窟 '洗尘' 记

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黄安伟, 云冈石窟 '洗尘' 记. 纽约时报中文网, May 20, 2014
cn.tmagazine.com/culture/20140520/t20relics/

, which is translated from

Edward Wong, Outlasting Dynasties, Now Choked by Soot; China battles its industrial pollution to preserve its antiquities. New York Times, May 18, 2014.

Note:
(a) “The colossal Buddhist statues in the cliffside caves outside this northern Chinese city , carved from golden sandstone by Turkic-speaking nomad conquerors in the fifth and sixth centuries, were so covered in coal dust that when visitors blew on them, black clouds rose up.”
(i) Northern Wei 北魏 (386-534; founded by 拓跋珪 of 鲜卑; capital 平城（今山西省大同市; 386-493) and 洛阳 (493-534))  Wikipedia
(ii) 鲜卑语 was not 汉语, but exactly what it was is unclear. See Xianbei
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianbei
(section 1 Origins)

(b) “Among the antiquities damaged by acid rain are the giant Buddha at Leshan in Sichuan Province and an 800-year-old thousand-armed statue of Guanyin 大足千手观音像, a revered Buddhist figure, at Dazu, according to Chinese news reports.”
(i) 乐山大佛 (built 713-803 唐)  Wikipedia
(ii) 大足区
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/大足区
(重庆市)

(c) “the mountainside relics at Xiangtangshan [响堂山石窟, at 河北省邯郸市] and Yaowangshan [药王山石刻, at 陕西省铜川市] * * * the Longmen Grottoes in Henan Province [龙门石窟, at 河南省洛阳市] * * * Mogao Caves of Dunhuang [莫高窟, at 甘肃省酒泉市 敦煌市]”
(d) Back to 云冈石窟: “During the Jurchen 女真 Jin dynasty 金朝, in the 12th and 13th centuries, a river that ran in front of the caves threatened the statues * * * The Tuoba eventually moved the seat of their dynasty south to Luoyang, in present-day Henan Province. There, they built more grand Buddhist statues at the Longmen Grottoes.”