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But Wang Yuanlu sold about 9,000 scrolls to British expeditor Aurel Stein for a mere 220 pounds, which, according to Stein, was barely enough for one such scroll on the European market.
Following Aurel Stein, flocks of archeologists and looters came to Dunhuang from Britain, India, France and Japan.
They took away a significant part of the Mogao caves, stealing thousands of scrolls and even stripping murals from the walls.
That was how Dunhuang's unfathomable heritage was discovered and exposed - to both admiration and destruction.
It is also the beginning of Zhou Bing's documentary, which shares the same title with the city of Dunhuang.
It is rare for the news channel of CCTV to choose to air a documentary series about history and arts during a prime time slot.
It is even risky, considering that most TV viewers might prefer something more entertaining during the Spring Festival holiday.
But it is not difficult to see why CCTV has such high expectations for the production.
The overall image quality is quite pleasing; there are fascinating three-dimensional animated video footages; the narrator has an intoxicating voice.
But it is the narrative that sets it apart from previous documentaries on the same subject, which Zhou Bing had studied before he started shooting his own.
Zhou Bing: [in Chinese] "I have watched a documentary about Dunhuang's caves, made by an NHK team. What distinguishes my work from theirs is that they focus very much on the caves alone, while my team attempted to present a complete picture of the history and heritage of Dunhuang. To achieve that, we used some dramatic elements to tell the stories."
