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China to Protect World's Largest Ancient Rock Paintings
After making a thorough examination of the seriously eroded ancient rock paintings on the Huashan Mountain in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,a group of experts have drafted a preliminary plan for the immediate remedy and long-term protection of those rock paintings.
Covering an area of about 15,300 square meters, the rock paintings are on a broad cliff rising steep along a river in Ningming County.
As the largest of their kind in the world, the rock paintings include more than 1,900 pictures such as human beings, weapons, boats and various animals, which were painted 2,000 years ago during the course of witchcraft conducted by the ancestors of Zhuangs, a major Chinese ethnic minority living primarily in the Region.
Featured by unique location, magnificent pictures and fabulous painting skills, the paintings will be of precious help to the study on Zhuangs' history.
Some parts of the paintings, however, have come to rift or even peeled off the cliff due to centuries of weathering, and some even have been covered by growing stalactites.
With the help of geologic radar, GPS coordinate measuring instrument, and computers, experts have ascertained the topographic and geologic conditions of the cliff, the run of the rifts, and the weathering speed.
Based on the results of their examination, the experts have put forward a series of measures to remedy the paintings.
For instance, in order to prevent them from being eroded by water, experts plan to build cement walls to stop up the mouths of those Karst caves inside the cliff and dig holes to lead the water in the caves out where there are no paintings.
The materials to be used to mend the paintings have drawn wide attention from the experts.
The materials must be highly elastic and reversible, otherwise, they will damage the paintings, according to Huang Kezhong, deputy director of the China Relics Research Institute, and an authoritative expert on rock relics protection.
Huang Huaiwu, a local relics expert, said few countries in the world have worked to protect rock paintings with such advanced methods as China has used. At present most activities to protect rock paintings in the world have only focused on the their surfaces, and little has been done to reduce the harm caused by natural weathering.
By now, a special station has been set up in Ningming County for the purposes of taking long-term care of the rock paintings.
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