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 the UNESCO Memory of the World Program to seek recognition as documentary heritage, according to Thua Thien-Hue Province’s People’s Committee.

The royal citadel treasures more than 4,000 Han-Nom works in verses 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.

One of the poems is seen as a declaration of independence of the Nguyen Dynasty, the country's last feudal regime.

The poem reads: The country has a civilization of thousands of years/ its territory stretches thousands of miles/ Ever since its establishment under the Hong Bang Family/ the country is prosperous and mighty.

Historians and experts, who have praised the poem's value, said they were an important part of the soul of Hue when it was the royal capital of the country.

Woodblocks of the Nguyen Dynasty, Documentary on vermilion records (Chau ban) of the Nguyen dynasty, Stone stele records of imperial examinations of the Le and Mac dynasties and Buddhist Sutra Woodblocks at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda were recognized as documentary heritage of the Memory of the World Program.