The Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in China’s Shaanxi Province announced on May 8 that it will cooperate with its French counterpart on the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and protection of China’s Terracotta Warriors. The agreement is one of 18 agreements signed between Chinese and French enterprises during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to France over May 5-7, reports Global Times.
Qin Shi Huang was the king of Qin who militarily consolidated most of the Chinese states in the third century BC and is considered to be the First Emperor of China, in 211 BC. He was a follower of the Legalists and is known to have persecuted the Confucian scholars. He constructed the now-famous Terracotta Warriors to “guard” his Mausoleum.
The collaborative research and restoration project with France’s Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine primarily focuses on the protection of wooden remains and earthen archaeological sites, according to a statement by the museum. Specifically, the protection of wooden remains will involve joint efforts to preserve and restore the fire-damaged wood remnants from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Mausoleum of Emperor Qinshihuang.
French President Emmanuel Macron promised that Notre Dame, one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, would be rebuilt and reopen by 2024. “The 2024 deadline will be met,” he told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published early on Thursday after visiting the site.
