Monument inscriptions in Han (Chinese characters) and Nom (old Vietnamese script based on Chinese characters) at the royal citadel in Hue will be submitted to UNESCO for recognition under World Document Heritage criteria. 

The compilation of application documents, the inscriptions and other necessary work are expected to be completed and submitted to the UN agency by 2015, according to the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.

The Han-Nom carved scripts are reported at relics throughout Vietnam, but such a large quantity of inscriptions in verse and prose are only found in relics in the ancient imperial city of Hue.

The royal citadel treasures more than 4,000 Han-Nom works in verse and prose, including poems and celebratory eulogies carved on palaces, steles, mausoleums and other monuments.

The most notable are poems celebrating spring, which are carved on Ngo Mon (Noon gate) and on the roof of Thai Hoa Palace.

Other highlights are a series of gilded poems in the palace presumably written by a number of kings about the country's independence, sovereignty, peace and prosperity.

Earlier, the Hue relic system and the “Nha Nhac Cung Dinh Hue” (Hue Royal Court Music) were recognised by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage site in 1993 and the intangible cultural heritage of human kind in 2003, respectively.

VNA