'Daughter of Dunhuang' Fan Jinshi donates another $1.38 million for cultural relic protection

(ECNS) -- Fan Jinshi, former president and current honorary president of the Dunhuang Academy, donated another 10 million yuan (about $1.38 million) for Dunhuang cultural relic research and protection as well as talent cultivation, according to a symposium citing Fan’s 60-year work on Dunhuang cultural relic protection held in Dunhuang, northwest China’s Gansu Province.

The donations are from Fan’s prize money and personal savings. She has already donated the same amount of money to Peking University for Dunhuang studies.

In order to commend her contributions to the archaeology and the protection of Dunhuang Caves, the asteroid with the international number 381323 discovered by the Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was officially named after “Fan Jinshi” on Monday, after the approval of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Fan devoted more than half a century to cultural relic research and protection. She was the first to suggest the "Digital Dunhuang" concept in the late 1980s to permanently preserve the murals, painted sculptures and historical data in Dunhuang Caves. With these contributions, she has won the name of “the Daughter of Dunhuang".