"Having the potential of being World Heritage" Experts deliberate Changyu stone culture

Sept. 26th morning, Stone Culture Seminar was held atbReidarsson hotel in Wenling. Yaohua Chen,the Associate Dean of Urban and Environmental Science and deputy director of the World Heritage Research Center, Peking University, he said: “Changyu Cave Complex has the potential of being World Heritage”.

Mr. Chen also is stone culture research group leader. He has been to Wenling more than 10 years ago, so he is very familiar to Wenling. This year, he accepted the Municipal Bureau of Tourism commissioned as Wenling Stone Culture Research Group Leader. The project is expected to be completed at the end of this year.

In Wenling Stone Culture Research Group’s report, Mr. Chen says, Wenling’s Stone culture could be divided into Quarrying Culture, Using Stone culture and Stone Appreciation.

When we look back to the quarrying history, Wenling Stone Culture is the history of quarrying. Wenling has rich and diverse stone landscape,  it combines plane and point, two different views. From plane view, it includes Changyu Cave Complex, The table mountain of Fangshan, Lady Stone and Stone Houses; from point view, it includes bridage, gate, well and folk houses.

Mr. Chen said, Wenling Stone cultural connotations, can be summarized as: the special geological conditions, a unique culture heritage quarrying, beautiful mountains, caves landscape and distinctive local characteristics of the masonry buildings and the history and culture for the characterization of them. Quarrying , Using Stone and Stone Appreciation are the one. We quarry the mountain, but we don’t destroy the mountain, we protect the mountain.

After Mr. Chen compared Changyu Cave Complex and the other world heritage, such as Huashan Mysterious Grottoes of Anhui, Zhejiang Longyou Grottoes, East Lake in Shaoxing, Guangdong Panyu, and analysed of the World Heritage List of cultural types and representatives of Stone, he said: “Changyu Cave Complex has the potential of being World Heritage”. We should prepare for applying World Heritage.