Repairs begin on 1,000-year-old Anhui carvings

Repairs have begun on 1,000-year-old cliff carvings on Qiyun Mountain, the famed Taoist site in central China's Anhui province, local authorities told Xinhua on Tuesday.

With an investment of 30 million yuan (about 4.7 million U.S. dollars), the repair project will be implemented in three phases to maintain 8,000 square meters of carvings using high-tech methods over the next three years, said Zhang Wei, deputy director of the Qiyun Mountain Nature Reserve Administration.

Qiyun Mountain bears 538 cliff carvings, classified by China as "National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units," but most have been eroded by rain and lichens over the past 10 centuries, according to Zhang.

Many of the carvings have been damaged and some have even disappeared, so they demand comprehensive repair, the nature reserve administrator added.

The carvings will be cleaned, made water-proof and protected from ultraviolet radiation.

The repair team is hoping to tackle more than 1,000 square meters of them in the first phase.