by Yu Fei and Gui Juan

    BEIJING, June 30 -- Songshan Mountain, one of "the five sacred mountains" in China, failed to enlist its historical architecture complex as world heritage sites.

    In a result announced Friday at the 33rd World Heritage Convention held by the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Seville, southern Spain, the non-inclusion of Songshan Mountain disappointed many officials of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH).

    "The great value of the historical architecture complex in Songshan Mountain is beyond question," said Shi Yongxin, Abbot of Shaolin Temple, "but there were some mistakes in the application procedures."

    "The World Heritage Committee has decided to postpone the inscription of Songshan Mountain into the World Heritage List," said Tang Wei, director of the world heritage department of SACH.

    Confusion caused by dual application of Songshan Mountain is the main reason for the postponement, stated the Administration overseeing China's cultural heritage in a press release.

    The World Heritage Committee stipulates that a country must first put its cultural heritage sites on the tentative list before being nominated for inscription on the World Heritage List.

    According to the World Heritage Tentative List, SACH submitted the application of the historical monuments of Songshan Mountain on March 28, 2008.

    However, Songshan Mountain was also included in the application submitted by China's Ministry of Construction on April 7, 2008 that sought heritage status for "the five sacred mountains" as an extension of Mt Taishan, already declared a World Heritage site in 1987.

    That caused confusion in the World Heritage Committee, revealed by SACH. Information about the latest application has yet to be accessed from the official website of the Ministry of Construction.

    In China, SACH is responsible for applications for World Cultural Heritage whereas the Ministry of Construction takes care of applications for World Natural Heritage.

    Furthermore, China recently had also applied for Wutai Mountain to become a mixed cultural and natural world heritage and the Buddhism shrine was successfully included in the List over the weekend but only as a cultural heritage site. Thus, Songshan Mountain, a similar type of cultural heritage as Wutai Mountain, faced an uphill task in getting inscription at the same time, stated the SACH press release.

    "More documents and materials about Songshan Mountain are required by the World Heritage Committee for future application," said Tang.

    Many officials with the Henan Cultural Heritage Bureau went silent over the result they had been waiting for till midnight Friday.

    "We have spared no efforts for the last eight years to see Songshan Mountain inscribed on this esteemed List," said Chen Ailan, head of Henan Cultural Heritage Bureau, "but we can accept the result. The ultimate goal of the world heritage application is to better protect the heritage."

    The experts have reviewed the cultural value of the Songshan Mountain ancient buildings during the bidding process. "And the public awareness of protecting those ancient buildings has been increased," Chen added.

    Shaolin Temple, the most well-known site, seated in Songshan Mountain, was first built in 495 AD. Many more disciples went to Shaolin Temple following Bodhidharma's arrival in 527 AD. They learned Zen from Bodhiharma at the monastery, turning Shaolin into the origin of Zen in China.

    Other ancient architectures and sites included in the world heritage bid are rarely known by the outside world. Yet they are no less valuable.

    They include China's oldest observatory remains dating back to the early 13th century, the 1,500-year-old brick tower of Songyue Temple, the oldest remaining one of its kind in China, and three pairs of towers - Taishi, Shaoshi, and Qimu, the country's oldest existing ritual structures built in Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).

    "Songshan Mountain houses ancient architectures from different ages over the past 2,000 years, which is rarely seen around the world," said Guo Daiheng, a professor at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University.

    Explaining why ancient heritages have clustered in one area of no more than 4,000 hectares, Gong Songtao, deputy director of the Cultural Heritage Bureau of Dengfeng city, said "Songshan Mountain was regarded as the center of the world by ancient Chinese. Altogether 72 Chinese emperors in history have visited this place and offered sacrifices to Heaven."

    "Different religious groups belonging to Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism came to build their bases. The religious culture embodied by them has been constantly evolving with the times," said Gong.

    Local government has earmarked a huge sum of money in the world heritage application. To map out the protection plan alone has cost more than 10 million yuan (1.5 million U.S. dollars), Gong said. But he didn't give the total sum.

    China currently has 38 world heritages, including 27 cultural, seven natural and four mixed ones. The application has become increasingly hard for China during recent years as the World Heritage Committee tries to balance and diversify the heritage list. "The repeated application for Songshan Mountain by more than one department exposed the problem of too many authorities involved in the management of cultural heritage," said an official with the Cultural Heritage Bureau of Dengfeng city, on conditions of anonymity.

    "A world heritage site means much more fame and cash, which unfortunately also leads to frictions among different departments," said the official.

    The SACH hopes the string of ancient relics in Songshan Mountain would be inscribed into the World Heritage List as early as possible.

    (Source: GlobalTimes.cn)