Project for Documentation of Cultural heritages in Central Asiatic Countries, funded by UNESCO and Japanese Funds-in-Trust: Turkmenistan
Prior to the documentation project (see the monthly report for January), the Japan Center for International Cooperation in Conservation dispatched a preparatory study team to Turkmenistan from February 14 to 18, at the request of UNESCO. This followed discussions with the related people of Central Asiatic countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) in January. The major purposes of this dispatch were to investigate the activities in Turkmenistan with this project, and confirm the research system and archive storage being conducted by those in Turkmenistan.
We discussed the direction in which the project should head in the future and their specific operations with the relevant persons in Turkmenistan. Then we visited Anau, which is one of the candidate sites for registration as a Silk Road World Heritage site, and the national museum, which stores many great artifacts of ancient Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is home to the Zoroastrian ruins and Buddhist temple ruins which are the westernmost of the temple ruins that have been discovered so far, and we can trace the footprints of various kinds of culture there. This area is a treasury of cultural heritages representing areas situated along the Silk Road.
We plan to actively implement studies on cultural heritages in Central Asia including Turkmenistan, and help develop human resources and transfer techniques.