Ancient Inscribed Stones Moved from Three Gorges Dam Area

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 ◆ Ancient Inscribed Stones Moved from Three Gorges Dam Area

The removal of four stones carrying inscriptions from the Qutangxia Gorge on the Yangtze River started recently, in a bid to keep the 1,000-year-old cultural relics from being inundated.

They are the first cultural relics to be moved from the Three Gorges, the site of the world's biggest hydro-electric project.

Yan Weiqian, an official in charge of the protection of cultural relics in the area, said that the central government has allocated five million yuan to remove the stones and locate them above the waterline of the Three Gorges Reservoir.

The ongoing Three Gorges project will inundate 632 square kilometers of land, and the people of 10 riverside counties will have to be evacuated. Archeologists have identified at least 1,087sites of cultural relics that need protection in the area.

So far, the Chinese government has spent 700 million yuan (about 84.34 million U.S. dollars) to preserve cultural relics within the Three Gorges area, including the 1,000-year-old Zhangfei Temple and Shi Bao Zhai Village.