China owns 108.15 million movable cultural artifacts, the country's first national survey conducted to better gauge and protect its ancient artefacts, has found.
The census, which covered over one million state institutions on the mainland, investigated, identified and registered various ancient artefacts, establishing national databases, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
A total of 7.08 million cultural artifacts were newly discovered during the survey.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued a statement yesterday saying that 26.61 million of them had been registered correctly.
China conducted the country's first census on movable cultural artifacts from October 2012 to December 2016, in which 107,000 took part, to better gauge and protect the country's ancient artifacts.
To date, about 50 million pictures of the artifacts have been uploaded to the national database and every artefact registered is given a unique code indicating the relic's location, organisation and sequence number.
The survey also noted the lack of proper facilities and staff to protect the country's cultural treasures.
According to the survey, each Chinese preservation worker is responsible for 2,290 items on average.
About 37.12 per cent of the artifacts are "partly damaged" and 1.81 per cent "seriously damaged." Only 1.09 per cent have received proper restoration.
The statement praised the public's role in preserving the country's cultural artefacts.
In the first nine months last year, the administration's supervision department received 128 reports of violations, including 104 reports from the public, social groups or media organisation.
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