Tibetan sutra printing house restarts world heritage application

One of China's most famous Tibetan sutra printing house has restarted work on an application for world heritage status, the local government said on Thursday.

Dege Sutra Printing House in Dege County of southwest China's Sichuan Province will re-prepare the application files after it suspended the work due to shortage in funds and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, said Gong Jianzhong, who leads the program.

Gong, also head of the bureau of press, publication, radio, film and television in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, told Xinhua that they have selected nine experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and several top universities to participate in the program.

Their primary goal is to be put on a tentative list of sites applying for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Dege Sutra Printing House started its application work for the first time back in 2005.

"Located in remote region, we hope the application could let more people know the printing house as well as Chinese especially Tibetan cultures," said Tsongzha, head of the house's cultural relics administration.

Built in 1729, Dege Sutra Printing House is well known for its exquisite frescos, sculptures, Tibet-style buildings and the layers of woodcut printing plates.

The ancient sutra printing house stores more than 830 volumes of classical books and over 300,000 woodcut printing plates, which are of high academic value in the study of Tibetan history, politics, economy, religion, literature and art. Many of the books are the only existing copies. Endi