China to unveil catalogue of relics in Forbidden City

     China will unveil a catalogue of all cultural and art relics kept in the Forbidden City after relics from the Ming and Qing dynasties are sorted, said Zheng Xinmiao, curator of the Forbidden City.

    "Many ancient cultural relics, including 2,000-plus paintings and calligraphy works and other belongings of emperors and empresses have not been catalogued due to outdated views towards cultural relics," Zheng said Thursday.

    "Now all the items that can reflect culture and history of the palace will be kept as relics through a protection plan," he said.

    "About 100,000 relics and materials will be added to the existing account and all the basic information on them will be unveiled to the public through the new catalogue," he said.

    "The new catalogue will be published to show the essence of China's traditional culture and the protection of these precious 'state-owned-assets' can be better supervised by the public through the publication," he said.

    Covering more than 720,000 square meters, the Forbidden City has over 9,000 rooms, and is located in the heart of Beijing.

    The palace, as the treasury of China's traditional culture, has preserved 1.5 million relics, accounting for one-sixth of the total collection of relics in China's museums.

    In 2005, the Chinese government decided to spend 1.5 billion yuan to revamp the Forbidden City over the next 15 years to better protect both the palace and the cultural relics.

    As part of the protection plan, it will take the museum seven years to sort the relics.