Wang Xudong speaks at the forum in Beijing on Oct 19, 2018. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]

Wang Xudong, president of the Dunhuang Academy:
Technology facilitates protection of cultural heritages

"Preventive protection of heritages needs a lot of technological measures, such as monitoring. After analyzing the monitoring results, scientists will find out the relationship between environmental factors and damages to the heritages, which helps preserve them efficiently."

"Another type of preventive protection is digitalization. Once digitization is completed, the artifacts can be permanently protected. This digitalization means creating a database for all the relics' structures, components and so on. So I think the integration of digital technology with multiple disciplines has brought us hope."