China / Germany: Musicians and Dancers. Fragment of fresco from Cave 12, Kumtura Thousand Buddha Caves, Kuqa County, Xinjiang, 8th-9th centuries CE. Museum fur Asiatische Kunst, Berlin

The Kumtura Thousand Buddha Caves (Kumutula Qianfodong), also Qumtura, is a Buddhist cave temple site in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. The site is located some 25 km west of Kucha, Kuqa County, on the ancient Silk Road.

112 cave temples survive, dating from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. Damaged during the Islamic conquests and subsequently by occasional habitation after abandonment of the site, Kumtura was visited by a number of the early foreign expeditions to Chinese Central Asia, including the 1902 Otani expedition, Oldenburg, and Le Coq. The last detached several wall paintings and took them back to Berlin, where they are now held at the Museum fur Asiatische Kunst.

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