VietNamNet Bridge – The collection of wood
blocks of the Vinh Nghiem pagoda is being considered by UNESCO to be recognized
as a UNESCO Memory of the World.

The collection of wood blocks of Vinh Nghiem pagoda in the northern province of Bac
Giang, includes 3,050 wood blocks, with average size of 24cmx35cmx0.4cm, carved
with Buddhist prayer-books of Thien Vien Truc Lam school. They are made of thi
tree wood which is yellow and soft. This kind of wood is especially good for
preserving the shape of the carvings.

The collection of wood blocks of Buddhist prayer-books at
Vinh Nghiem pagoda is Vietnam’s
treasure, which is preserved very well.

A working group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bac
Giang province went to Poland on May 18, to attend some UNESCO meetings from
May 19-25, in which nominations for recognition as UNESCO world heritages will
be assessed and voted on, including Vietnam’s wood blocks.

The group included Deputy Foreign Minister, Nguyen Thanh
Son, Bac Giang’s Vice Chair Nguyen Van Linh, Pham Sanh Chau, Vietnamese
Ambassador to Belgium (former Secretary General of the Vietnam UNESCO
Committee) and Hoang Thi Hoa, Director of Bac Giang Department of Culture,
Sports and Tourism.

After the meetings in Poland,
UNESCO will make public the names of the latest world cultural heritages and
world memory heritages in the UK.

UNESCO meets to vote for new world heritages every two
years.

UNESCO’s Memory of
the World Program, also called UNESCO World Documentary Heritage, is an
international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of
humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic
conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction.

It calls for the
preservation of valuable archival holdings, library collections and private
individual compendia all over the world for posterity, the reconstitution of
dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and the increased accessibility to
and dissemination of these items.

The program began in 1992, as a way to preserve and promote
documentary heritage, which can be a single document, a collection, a holding
or an archival fonds that is deemed to be of such significance, as to transcend
the boundaries of time and culture. The program is administered by a body known
as the International Advisory Committee, or IAC, whose 14 members are appointed
by the UNESCO Director-General.

In 2009, a set of Nguyen dynasty
wood blocks became the first piece of Vietnamese heritage to win recognition as
a UNESCO Memory of the World.

In 2010, 82 stone stele records
of imperial examinations of the Le and Mac dynasties, containing the names and
related information of doctoral laureates who passed the imperial examinations
during the reign of the Le and Mac dynasties from 1442 to 1779; became an
inscription of the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program.

Tu Luong