Japan will donate $623,798 to the first phase of UNESCO's Longmen grottoes conservation project to help preserve sculptures carved in cave walls over a millennium ago in China, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The more than 2,000 grottoes, located in Henan Province, contain about 110,000 Buddhist sculptures carved over a period of 400 years, from the late period of the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty (493-907).
They have become badly damaged due to both natural and artificial causes, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The money will come from Japan's trust fund for cultural heritage preservation set up in 1989 by UNESCO. Japan had contributed close to $38 million to the fund as of the end of fiscal 2000.
In the first two-year phase of the project, UNESCO plans to conduct surveys on the causes of damage and carry out experiments on conservation methods, technical analyses and human resources training in preparation for the second phase, the ministry said.
UNESCO and China are scheduled to sign a document specifying the operational arrangements for the conservation project on Saturday at the Longmen grottoes, which were registered last year as a World Heritage Site, the ministry said.