Ambassador of the European Union to Vietnam Giorgio Aliberti speaks at the launching ceremony of the project - PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE EU DELEGATION TO VIETNAM

A project on historical studies and digitalizing Vietnamese social science documents (Vietnamica) sponsored by the European Union was launched on November 4, expecting to help understand and record the rich history of Vietnam.

The project will be carried out in five years through a number of field trips and workshops. Teams of researchers from France and Vietnam will focus on studying bia hau, the traditional stone for religious donations dating back to the 15th-20th centuries in Vietnam.

The teams will use automatic text recognition and digitalization techniques to ensure the secrets these stones contain are preserved for future generations.

It is expected that when the project concludes, a digitalized database of texts and books will be created for future researching and referencing and an international conference will be held to summarize all the research findings, documents and graphics gathered in five years.

Vietnamica is a research and cultural heritage project that gives special priority to studying bia hau, the traditional stone for religious donations in Vietnam. SGT