Photo taken on Oct. 20, 2020 shows a member of cultural relics protection staff creating digital file with a 3-D laser scanner for ruins of a pagoda at the site of ancient Loulan in the wilderness of Ruoqiang County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. A project launched in June 2020 to preserve the site of ancient Loulan, dubbed "Oriental Pompeii," was accomplished on Nov. 30. Loulan was a prosperous settlement built around 2,000 years ago to serve traders transiting through the ancient Silk Road. However, with time, references to Loulan mysteriously disappeared. (Northwest Research Institute Co., Ltd. of CREC/Handout via Xinhua)
