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Chengde Summer Palace |
Hebei has a considerable cultural heritage. Research is now being undertaken to evaluate and preserve many of the province's priceless historical icons and relics.
Statistics from the Hebei Culture Heritage Bureau show that by early May of this year, nearly 50 percent of the more sizeable local cultural relics had been professionally catalogued. The number of newly identified "non-movable cultural relics" is now 12,000, double the previous estimate.
Officials say the discovery of the Wu’an folk living community is an important benchmark for establishing the province’s history. A total of 18 sites featuring ancient relics from the Paleolithic Age (2.5 million years-1 million years ago) have also been found in Chengde. The early Shang Dynasty (1766-1111BC) city relics in Cangzhou also proved to be of considerable archaeological significance.
A total of 248 ancient temples, opera buildings and residential buildings were also registered during the investigation. The research program is expected to be completed late this year, when the total number of non-movable cultural relics is expected to exceed 30,000. The final research results will be released in June 2011.
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