YANGON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is striving to enlist Bagan, a famous ancient city in the central part of the country with thousands of religious edifices and pagodas, as a World Cultural Heritage Site.
Cooperation is being made with intellectuals and technicians for the maintenance of Bagan which has dignity and value for being a world heritage if enlisted.
In fact, the plan for the purpose was launched in 1996 but was resumed in 2017.
Amid efforts for listing the Bagan Archaeological Zone as the World Cultural Heritage, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake destroyed some religious edifices and pagodas on Aug 24 last year and the restoration works were being done by experts to maintain their original shape, form and value.
Bagan Archaeological site was enlarged from 42 square miles to 62 square miles, according to the Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library under the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture.
Geographically, Bagan comprises two areas -- Upper Bagan and Lower Bagan. The city was established by descendants of Pyu and attained rapid development after Buddhism had flourished. Then, stupas, temples, caves, tunnels and monasteries of different sizes and designs were constructed by the royal families and people around Bagan and Nyaung U between AD 11th and 13th centuries.
With over 3,000 Buddhist temples, monasteries, stupas and monuments compacted into one area, Bagan is a home to Buddhist architectures signifying the unique morals aborning interior walls of the religious edifices.
In 2012, Director General of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Irina Bokova paid a visit to Bagan for discussing the future working process and the relation between Myanmar archaeological teams and UNESCO.
The tentative step of cooperating Myanmar's archaeological team and UNESCO experts has marked the starting point in the creation of unique value of ancient city Bagan to be listed as World Cultural Heritage.
Three other Pyu ancient cities of Myanmar -- Hanlin, Beikthano and Sri Kestra have been selected by the UNESCO as world cultural heritage in June 2014.
