|
China's south-to-north river water diversion project will detour when it encounters key cultural relic sites along its central route, Niu Xinqiang, director of the designing institute of the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee said in a recent interview.
Great importance will be attached to protecting cultural relics at national and provincial levels and those considered "very important" by the archaeological circles as the project breaks ground, Niu said.
Niu noted that the committee began to investigate cultural relics in the Danjiangkou Reservoir area and along the project's central route in the 1960s in preparation for the project.
Once the sites are confirmed by water resources authorities, they will make corresponding changes to the route, said Niu, who is also an assistant leader of an archaeological team to probe the cultural sites.
Many ancient cultures' relics, from the Xia Dynasty (C. 2100 BC-C. 1600 BC), Shang Dynasty (C. 1600 BC-C. 1100 BC), and the Warring States period (475 BC-221 BC), are dispersed along the project's trunk canal and the Danjiangkou Reservoir area, according to the committee.
The latest archaeological research by the committee shows 200 ascertained cultural sites that will be encountered while digging the canal.
The cultural relics unearthed so far in the Danjiangkou Reservoir include the fossils of dinosaur eggs dating back 60 million years, a human skeleton from the Old Stone Age, the aristocratic tombs of the Warring States period and buildings of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
However, another 38 sites above ground and 189 below may need rescue, said the committee.
(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2002)
|
