Indian experts help Quang Nam preserve My Son Sanctuary

PSNews - Indian experts since April have joined hands with Vietnamese colleagues to begin restoration of a complex of towers considered the core area of the world cultural heritage site the My Son Sanctuary in Quang Nam province.

According to the plan, the experts will carefully restore Towers A1, A8, A10, A11, A12, and A13 based on a principle of preserving ancient values as much as possible. The Towers A complex covers an area of nearly 3,000 square metres and is surrounded by a brick wall more than one-metre thick. 

Indian experts help Quang Nam preserve My Son Sanctuary. Photo for illustration
Indian experts help Quang Nam preserve My Son Sanctuary. Photo for illustration

They expect to discover more artifacts and architectural structures underneath and inside the towers.

Vietnamese and Indian experts completed the upgrade of Towers K and H at My Son Sanctuary in April 2019 after three years of renovations.

While excavating the towers, they discovered a tunnel and valuable artifacts such as stone statues in the human form and lion heads as well as other architectural objects dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries.

The upgrades of Towers K, H, and A are being carried out over five years from 2016 to 2021, costing over VND60 billion (US$2.55 million), including over VND50 billion from the Indian Government.

Earlier, in 2017, the Indian Government has provided financial assistance worth over 50 billion VND (2.2 million USD) to the central province of Quang Nam to help restore and preserve the world cultural heritage site of My Son Sanctuary, a local official has said.

My Son Sanctuary dates from the 4th to the 13th centuries CE. The property is located in the mountainous border Duy Xuyen District of Quang Nam Province, in central Viet Nam. It is situated within an elevated geological basin surrounded by a ring of mountains, which provides the watershed for the sacred Thu Bon river. 

The tower temples were constructed over ten centuries of continuous development in what was the heart of the ancestral homeland of the ruling Dua Clan which unified the Cham clans and established the kingdom of Champapura (Sanskrit for City of the Cham people) in 192 CE. 

The monuments of the My Son sanctuary are the most important constructions of the My Son civilization. The tower temples have a variety of architectural designs symbolizing the greatness and purity of Mount Meru, the mythical sacred mountain home of Hindu gods at the center of the universe, now symbolically reproduced on Earth in the mountainous homeland of the Cham people. 

They are constructed in fired brick with stone pillars and decorated with sandstone bas-reliefs depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. The monuments are unique and without equal in Southeast Asia.  

By Minh Thien

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