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A team of heritage preservation experts inspected the work on Wednesday and announced that the project was complete.

"This repair work has tackled a series of technical challenges to preserve the cultural relic with modern scientific technologies and new materials to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the statue," said Huang Kezhong, the leader of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Inspection Team.

The team has also suggested the local government should repair the Great Mercy Pavilion, which houses the statue, as soon as possible.

The Dazu Rock Carvings, 60 kilometers west of Chongqing, date to the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties and comprise more than 5,000 statues. They were opened to Chinese visitors in 1961 and foreign visitors in 1980. The carvings were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

"They are remarkable for their aesthetic quality, their rich diversity of subject matter, secular and religious, and the light that they shed on everyday life during this period. They provide outstanding evidence of the harmonious synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism," the citation said.

The statue of Kwan-yin in Baoding Mountain was carved about 800 years ago during the South Song Dynasty (1127-1276), with 830 hands in an area of 88 square meters in the hillside. It is 7.7 meters tall and 12.5 meters wide, featuring color painting and gold foil. It is the largest of its kind in China.

Water seepage and weather damage caused the statue to deteriorate, and a conservation project began in April 2011. It was listed as the top restoration project by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The work was led by the China Cultural Heritage Protection Research Institute. Experts from Dunhuang Research Academy, the Academy of Dazu Rock Carving, Peking University, Tsinghua University and China University of Geosciences also participated.

Three phases

The project went through three phases from inspection, planning and the actual repair work. The team used X-ray and 3-D laser scanning to collect information needed to effect the restoration.

"We found 34 kinds of viruses on the sculpture that have greatly damaged the historical and artistic value of the carving," said Zhan Changfa, the chief scientist of the restoration project.

They also found that 283 of the statue's 830 hands and arms were damaged. To respect the religious history, the team consulted reference books and pictures to ensure the restoration was accurate.

The major part of the restoration involved attaching a new layer of gold foil to the statue. The original foil was between 83 percent and 92 percent gold. In some parts the statue had six layers of gold foil as a result of restoration work in the past.

An ancient technique from the Song Dynasty was applied. The gold foil was first separated from the statue, washed in pure water and alcohol before being reapplied. Once in place, it was painted with three coats of lacquer.

The statue is due to reopen to the public on June 13, which is China's Cultural Heritage Day.

Author: Tan Yingzi | Source: China Daily [May 30, 2015]

According to research by the China Great Wall Society, it is not optimistic about the protection of the Great Wall. For example, only 8.2 percent of the Great Wall built in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) is in good condition presently.

Moreover, in the report released by the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2012, less than 10 percent of the Ming Great Wall is preserved adequately, 20 percent is moderately preserved, and almost 30 percent has disappeared.

The World Monument Fund based in New York announced in 2003 that the Great Wall was among the 100 most endangered historic sites.

Bad weather is one of the main causes of damage to the Great Wall. Dong Yaohui, the deputy of the China Great Wall Society, said that most parts of the masonry structure of the Great Wall are in Beijing and Hebei province. Though they are more stable than the sun-dried mud brick Great Wall, in the rainy seasons during July and August, they can be easily broken by storms.

Local data shows that in the summer of 2012, 36 meters of the Dajing Gate part of the Great Wall in Zhangjiakou, a city in northwestern Hebei province, was damaged by storms; the Shanhai Pass part in Qinhuangdao, a city in northeast part of Hebei province, leaked badly; while some fighting towers of the Wulonggou portionin Laiyuan, a city in western Hebei province, totally collapsed.

Even in the dry seasons, because of lack of protection, the Great Wall in the mountain areas in Hebei province was eroded by mountain springs or even plants. In Funing County, a county in Qinhuangdao, if you slightly touch the wall of the watchtowers, you will find soil peeling off. There are also trees growing in the cracks of the Great Wall.

People living around or travelling to the Great Wall which has not been developed into tourist attractions are also damaging the wall. According to Zhang Heshan, a Great Wall protector in Funing County, more travelers have been exploring the wild Great Wall in recent years. The frequent trampling has led to damage, causing the bricks to loosen, and even walls to collapse. However, there were not enough protectors to patrol around these areas, and not enough money to restore the damage.

Journalists from the Beijing Times also found that people in some villages of Lulong County, in the west part of Qinhuangdao, lived in the houses built with ancient blue and grey bricks. They told the journalists that these bricks were removed from the Great Wall nearby.

Some villagers even sold the Great Wall bricks with carved characters. An unnamed villager in Dongfeng Village told the Beijing Times journalist that the market price of these bricks is 40 to 50 yuan ($6.4 to $8.05) a piece, or even as low as 30 yuan ($4.83). The villagers collect such bricks from the Great Wall without a second thought.

Accordign to Dong Yaohui, it is difficult for the government to fully protect the Great Wall. "In Funing County, there are only 9 people in the department of cultural relics, but they have to go on a 142.5 km tour of inspection. It’s definitely impossible to take good care of the Great Wall by themselves," Dong said.

Dong also stressed that the counties along the Great Wall are relatively poor. Most of the counties surrounding the Great Wall in Zhangjiakou are national assigned poverty counties. Local governments cannot afford to repair and protect the Great Wall, or only invest in the parts which bring in revenue from tourism.

To some people, developing tourism is an effective way to protect the Great Wall. Xu Guohua, the head of Banchangyu Great Wall Development Company, said that the destruction from the villagers has stopped after development. Meanwhile, tourists know which part of the Great Wall is endangered.

"You have to admit that the development of the wild Great Wall brings rules and regulations to both the villagers and travelers. In recent years, the protection of the Great Wall in our scenic spot became much better than the undeveloped parts in our county," said Xu.

However, many point out that it is impossible to develop the whole Great Wall into tourism sites. And the development may bring more visitors to the endangered Great Wall, but not all the tourism development companies are committed to protecting the Great Wall. Instead, some of them only focus on the income from tickets, regardless of the intrinsic value of the Great Wall.

How to protect the disappearing Great Wall? Obviously, it is an important test for Chinese society. Just like what Dong Yaohui said in an recent article, "the Great Wall belongs to everybody of China. The duty of protection of the Great Wall not only belongs to the government, but also to the common people. The most urgent goal for us is to arouse the enthusiasm of the public to protect the Great Wall. "

Source: China Daily [June 30, 2015]

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The renovation work that began on January 26 has been going on in full swing, with the preliminary poojas for performing Kumbhabhisekham (consecration) expected to begin within a couple of weeks, according to the Agama Sastras.

The work is under the close monitoring of HR and CE Minister R Kamaraj, while R Kannan, Culture, Museums, Tourism and Religious Endowments Departments Secretary, experts from Archaeological Survey of India, State Archaeological Department and Museum department are extending advice. All renovation works have been documented from the beginning.

The renovation work is estimated to cost ` five crore, funded by donors. According to sources, the work is done in such a way that it would not require any structural repair for a century.

Talking to City Express, P Kothandaraman, Deputy Commissioner, Parthasarathy temple, said all the 29 holy kalasams had been gold-coated for the first time. This was done in the conventional way instead of modern electroplating process, and used 364 grams of gold for this.

“The electrical network has been replaced. The bulbs have been replaced with important LED bulbs. In accordance with our ancient practice, no electric light would be installed inside Karpa Griha (sanctum sanctorum). Once the consecration of temple is complete, the devotees can have darshan only in the light of ghee lamps,” Kothandaraman said.

Along with the structures, the lily pond (Allikeni), which gave the village its name Tiru Allikeni, has been restored. According to the temple history, the pond is called kairavini pushkarani — filled with red Lily flowers.  It is believed that Goddess Mahalakshmi was born in this tank as Vedavalli.  For the past four or five decades, there have been no lillies in the pond. But soon, red colour lily flowers will fill the pond to suit its name.

Kothandaraman added that unnecessary structures built inside the temple over a period using cement and all the marble structures have been removed. In their place, unpolished granite (karunkal) levelled by hand push hammering would be laid in all parts of the temple, adding to its ancient eighth century look.

As the woodwork inside the gold- plated Ananda vimanam atop the sanctum sanctorum of the presiding deity Lord Parthasarathy has been damaged over the years, it has been renovated using new teak wood. Instead of steel nails as is usual, brass nails have been used for the work.

The two temple cars will be covered with unbreakable transparent glasses in their middle portion at a cost of `27 lakh.

The karungal on the compound walls have been applied with an organic mixture called noogra paste imported from Afghanistan and another clay imported from Africa to ensure their safety.

Another mixture called surya kavasam, a mixture of aloe vera, vasambu (sweet flag), kadukkai (terminalia chebula) and a few other herbs will be applied inside of all temple towers in order to protect them from termites and other decay.

The 16-pillar mandapam (Andaal Neeraatta Mandapam) located on the Eastern side of the temple has also been  renovated. The lime coatings given during the past 10 decades have been removed using an organic material called devata.

Dream Darshan

The presiding deity here is Sri Venkatakrishna Swami also known as Geethacharya. Puranas say King Sumathy prayed  Lord Thiruvengada of the Seven Hills to give him darshan in the form of the charioteer (Sarathy) to Partha (Arjuna) during the Mahabharata war, rendering Bhagavad Gita. Lord Thiruvengada appeared in his dream and bade him to go to Brindaranya (Triplicane) where he would give him darshan in the form he wished. Sri Venkatakrishna Swamy is enshrined in the middle of the sanctum sanctorum, while Sri Rukmani Thayar and Satyaki are on his right and left. Elder brother Balarama is seen on the right side of Rukmani Thayar facing North and his son Prathyumnan and grandson Anirudhan are on the Northern side  facing south The Utsava Moorthi is seen with marks in the face caused by Bheeshma’s arrows during the Mahabharatha War.

Author: T. Muruganandham | Source: Indian Express [May 21, 2015]

The violence left the bomber and one gunman dead, the other wounded and arrested, and four other people wounded. The temple was not damaged.

The attackers carried guns in backpacks, and one wore a belt of explosives. They rode in a taxi through a police checkpoint to a parking lot and sat at a cafe and ordered lemonades, witnesses told The Associated Press. The taxi driver, suspicious after they refused his offer to help with the packs, alerted police.

When a policeman approached, the bomber tried to hug him, but the policeman wrestled away. Seconds later, he detonated the explosives, and the others pulled automatic weapons from their bags and opened fire wildly, sending a small group of European tourists running for cover, the witnesses said.

The attack followed one this month outside the famed Giza Pyramids in which gunmen killed two policemen. The violence points to a change in tactics by Islamic militants against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. For two years, attacks have been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, mostly by a group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and largely focused on retaliation against police and soldiers.

A campaign against tourism, one of the main sources of foreign revenue, could deal a blow to el-Sissi's promises to repair Egypt's economy.

Tourism has just started to show signs of recovery after plunging in the turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The first five months of this year saw tourism revenues up 9 percent from the same period last year, Tourism Minister Khaled Ramy said.

Ramy said he expects the slow recovery to continue despite the attack, and he underscored how police had thwarted it.

"Security forces were there. It's a very important message to everyone," he told the AP on a flight from Cairo to Luxor.

Mohammed Sayed Badr, the governor of Luxor province, said the attack was "an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak."

"They didn't make it in," he said.

But witnesses noted it was civilian bystanders who alerted police to the threat.

Karnak, one of Egypt's biggest attractions, is a giant complex of temples, statues, obelisks and columns built by pharaonic dynasties alongside the Nile. The oldest sections date back nearly 4,000 years.

Access to the site is through a gate and a roadblock, leading to a parking lot and visitors' center hundreds of yards from the ancient structure, which is reachable only on foot.

The waiter who served the men said only one spoke to him and had an accent from northern Egypt, while the others stopped talking when he approached. When they paid their bill, he said he refused to take their tip.

"They looked scary. ... One of them had really bad eyes," said the waiter, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ikrami, for fear of problems with police for talking to the media.

Another cafe employee, Abdel-Nasser Mohammed, said the taxi driver reported his suspicions about the men to police. As the three walked away, a policeman approached them, leading to the tussle between the officer and the bomber, Mohammed said.

The bomber triggered the blast near a public restroom, and the other two opened fire. One ran toward the visitors' center, and a policeman shot him in the head, Mohammed said.

Tourist shop owner Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Mawgoud said he been standing near the restroom only seconds before the blast.

"When the explosion happened, I ran for cover and told my friend, a tour guide, to run with the tourists with him. I screamed at him, 'Terrorism!'" he told the AP.
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The exchange of fire with police lasted several minutes, witnesses said, and two policemen were among the wounded.

Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were in the temple at the time, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

AP video of the scene showed what was believed to be the remains of the bomber covered with a black sheet with pools of blood nearby.

The monument "is safe and unaffected and visitors continue to arrive," temple director Mohammed Abdel-Aziz told the AP. Four groups of foreigners visited after the attack.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have operating in the Sinai Peninsula.

Last year, the main Sinai-based insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has destroyed archaeological landmarks in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.

The violence in Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in retaliation for a massive crackdown on Islamists in Egypt.

A senior security official said investigators are looking to see whether the Luxor attackers are Egyptians and whether it marks an expansion of the violence to southern Egypt, which was a breeding ground for the militants of the 1990s and 2000.

In the 1990s, Islamic militants targeted tourism to try to undermine the economy. The deadliest attack was in Luxor in November 1997, 58 people were killed at the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said the new breed of militants were unknown to the authorities. But he said the latest attack was a qualitative shift in the militants' target.

The attack coincided with a major regional economic summit, hosted by el-Sissi at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Luxor is home to some of Egypt's most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been one the sites hit hardest by the sharp downturn in foreign visitors since the 2011 uprising.

Before the turmoil, tourism accounted for as much as 20 percent of Egypt's foreign currency revenues, with as a high of 14.7 million visitors in 2010.

After the uprising, those numbers plunged to 9.6 million, and then fell lower in 2013 after Morsi's ouster. Tourists have been coming back slowly, with revenues jumping to $4 billion so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in the same period in 2014.

Beach resorts in southern Sinai and along the Red Sea coast have drawn most of the visitors, with cultural sites like Luxor seeing only a trickle. Most tourists in the searing heat of the summer months come to Luxor only for a one-day trip from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

Wednesday's attack is likely to result in cancellations in bookings for Luxor, although the blow is cushioned by the fact that it is low season and most tourists stay away until October.

Three major German operators, TUI Deutschland, the Germany branch of Thomas Cook and L'TUR, said they are temporarily canceling excursions to Luxor, but stressed that most of their customers are at Red Sea resorts or on Nile cruises.

"We have no reason to advise against traveling to Egypt at the present time, since the German Foreign Ministry hasn't changed its security guidance," said L'TUR spokesman Thomas Pluennecke. "But, as a precaution, we have stopped all excursions to Luxor. Of course we take the situation seriously."

Authors: Sarah el Deeb & Haggag Salama | Source: The Associated Press [June 10, 2015]