Chinese archaeologist donates 1.45 mln USD to support Dunhuang studies

BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archaeologist Fan Jinshi on Thursday donated 10 million yuan (around 1.45 million U.S. dollars) to Peking University to promote its Dunhuang studies.

An education fund named after Fan is expected to be set up with her donation, aiming to support studies of the manuscripts and a wide variety of art treasures discovered in the millennium-old Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu Province.

The fund includes the previous award-winnings and personal savings of Fan, who is the honorary president of Dunhuang Academy.

Fan, who graduated as an archaeology major in the History Department of Peking University, started to work in Dunhuang in 1963 and made it a lifelong career to protect and study the cultural relics in Mogao Grottoes.

She was awarded the Lui Che Woo Prize in 2019 and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Scientific and Technological Achievements in 2020.