The work of collecting and digitizing documents is incredibly important and has never been enough to effectively carry out the restoration of cultural heritage. For the cultural heritage of Hue, this need is even more urgent as the Complex of Monuments of Hue Imperial City still has many structures awaiting sufficient documentation to complete scientific files for restoration purposes.
“Taking Thai Mieu Temple as an example. While the temple was undergoing restoration in phase 1, we accidentally discovered a historical photograph of the temple showing that the design did not match the original drawing. We immediately coordinated the information with Hue Monuments Conservation Center. From this, the center made timely adjustments,” shared Mr. Nguyen Phong, a member of the group Tan Do Thanh Hieu Co (Neo-Journal of Friends of Hue Ancient Capital group).
On the group’s tireless journey of collecting and digitizing historical photos, Phong added - as a heartfelt confession: “The task of collecting and exploiting documents about historical monuments is extremely difficult and not many people understand or empathize with it. Recently, our group found a treasure trove of photos by tracing some documents all the way to the U.S. Congress Museum, with the only initial information being an archive code and knowing it was stored in Vietnam; we had no idea what was inside. It wasn’t until we had access, filtered, and analyzed them on-site that we realized how precious these materials were. The group is now working with Hue Monuments Conservation Center to extract information with the criteria of “Accuracy and Beauty”
Hue Today Weekly would like to introduce to readers the story of the journey of collecting documentary photos of Mr. Nguyen Phong and his colleagues:
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| Documentary photo of Thai Mieu Temple |
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| Classifying, analyzing, and digitalizing the documents |
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| Searching for documents from the storage after discovering clues from the ancient documents |
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| Searching for documents from the storage after discovering clues from the ancient documents |
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Accessing valuable albums about Hue’s heritage
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By Hue Today Weekly
