News Desk: The remains of an ancient Buddhist temple have been discovered at the Taklimakan Desert in China. The temple is believed to be around 1500 years old.

 

Dr. Wu Xinhua , the Chief archaeologist of the excavation project has informed that the temple's main hall, with a rare structure based around three square-shaped corridors and a huge Buddha statue, was unearthed after two months of hard work in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

 

The hall's wall surrounds an area of 256 square meters. The innermost corridor extends six meters from both south to north and from east to west and the second corridor be 10 meters both in length and width.

 

Wall paintings of items including the Buddha's feet, Buddhists and auspicious animals are still able to be seen on the corridor walls. They are painted in a Greco-Buddhist artistic style, a rare method that was used apparently in the 6th century.

 

In 1901, British explorer Marc Aurel Stein initially discovered an ancient city with homes, Buddhist 'stupas', temples, pottery kilns, orchards, tombs, waterways and dams in the desert and since then, more than 10 Buddhist sites have been discovered by archaeologists from China and abroad in the Damago Oasis.

 

The excavation has offered valuable research material for historians studying Buddhism's spread from India to China.

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