1.5 bln to be used to repair N China's ancient buildings

The Hanging Temple, or Xuankong Temple, is a temple on a cliff (about 75 meters above the ground) near Hengshan Mountain,in Hunyuan county, North China's Shanxi province. The 1,400-year-old monastery was built during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-557). Completely built on the mountain cliff, it seems that the wood-structure temple is supported by the beams inserted into the chiseled holes in the cliff. [Photo/Xinhua]

North China's Shanxi province will raise funds to renovate and protect its ancient wooden architecture between 2015 and 2020, local authorities said Monday.

A total of 1.5 billion yuan (about 240 million US dollars) in state and provincial funds will be raised, said Wang Jianwu, head of Shanxi's cultural relics department.

The money will be used to repair 235 wooden buildings under state and provincial protection. It may also benefit other buildings built before the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368), which are currently under municipal and county-level protection.

The new preservation project will help Shanxi protect its ancient buildings, many of which have been severely damaged due to natural or human causes, Wang added

In 2008, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage started protecting sites in southern Shanxi at a cost of 400 million yuan, but little-known sites at the city or county level were not covered under the budget.